Who We Are
by AvatarAang7
Summary: During the day, Jinora is a model child. She's good at school, and almost never breaks the rules. But at night, it's a different story. At night, she becomes Jin, the talented and carefree skatergirl. But what happens when someone starts blurring the lines between those two? Modern Kainora AU. Rated M for profanity and sex later on.
1. First Base

Jinora sighed, and finally put her pen down. She had just scribbled the final solution down in her notes, and she was completely sick of it by now. What she had basically done, was come home from school, get on her calculus, pause somewhere to shove some dinner into her mouth, and then did more calculus. But now, she was done, prepared for her test tomorrow, and was finally able to blow off some steam.

"I'm off to bed, goodnight everybody," Jinora said, faking a yawn.

Pema seemed somewhat surprised. "Already? It's not even ten o'clock."

"It's been a long day, and I have that calculus test tomorrow, I need to be fresh and fit."

-"Well, in that case, you better get some sleep. Goodnight, sweetheart."

"Goodnight, Mom."

The young girl made her way up the stairs to her room, and carefully locked the door. She knew full well that Meelo and Rohan were already asleep, so she had to be extra quiet. Jinora quietly slipped on her faded orange hoodie, baggie jeans and kicked-down sneakers, and made her way to the window.

This was when she truly came alive: at night.

A few months ago, when she couldn't sleep, Jinora did something she'd never done in the seventeen years she'd been walking this planet: she snuck out. It had been fairly difficult at first, but she had since figured out easier ways to get down from the second floor; crouch down on the windowsill, very gently shuffle over to the stone wall, and land with a roll in the grass to spare her knees. Easy.

From there, she could go into town on foot. Initially, it had been just to clear her head, but then she came across something she'd wouldn't have guessed she'd be into: a skate park. Turns out, it was only eight blocks from their house, easily manageable on foot. Of course, she didn't walk the entire way anymore, as there was a watershed shack with a busted lock about halfway there. Jinora used this to store a board and a helmet, so that she could pick it up on the way, and continue her journey on wheels.

The first time she ended up in the park by accident, and when someone shoved a skateboard under her feet, she ultimately gave in. The way these kids moved around on those things was truly something to behold, the smoothness, the elegance. Of course, there were plenty of moves that didn't work, but Jinora was something of a natural, and a little bit of practice brought that out.

For pretty much as long as she could remember, her father had been training her in baguazhang, and she was getting close to full mastery. This level of control over her own body easily translated, much to her own surprise, very well to skating.

Once there, she heard the familiar strum of the rap music coming from a speaker that someone brought with him, along with the sounds of people in the bowl and on the halfpipe, perfecting their moves and/or showing off. The lay-out of the park was fairly simple: a roughly V-shaped bowl with circles on each end, a halfpipe in either corner, and a few ramps with rails in the open spaces. Lighting was bright to make sure the police could see them in case they caused trouble for neighboring residents, 'cause hey, this wasn't the hottest part of town anyway.

-"Jinny!" Korra's excited voice rung through the air. This made Jinora look up and smile. Korra had basically been the one to talk her into trying the board, which worked out very well. They'd been friends from the start. Also, to cover herself from likely fall-out this would bring if her parents found out, Jinora had sort of rolled into the alter ego of Jin. Not the strongest cover ever, but it did the trick.

In truth, Jin was something of a pressure valve to Jinora, what felt an opportunity to release the breath she was holding all day long. Here, she didn't have to hold her breath, she could be free. Nobody expected anything from her, not the straight-A student she normally was, not to eat her veggies and go to bed on time, Jin could do whatever she damn-well pleased, and what she pleased, was to skate like there was no tomorrow.

-"Gonna show off those moves again?" Korra asked after the girls greeted each other, being genuinely curious.

Jinora smiled. "You insult me, I don't show off. I'm not you," she playfully teased, growing a slanted smirk.

The older girl playfully nudged her in the shoulder. "Yeah right, and I suppose that perfect 540 on the halfpipe last week was just a coincidence?"

A shrug was the dry reply. "Just lucky timing. Thought about going for the full 720 tonight."

-"Christ," Korra swore. "Took me nearly a year to perfect that, and here you are, three months in. What is it you said wanted to do later on?"

"Meh, I'm still in high school. Not sure yet about what's next, so instead, I'm just focusing on what's in front of me, and right now, that's a very tempting halfpipe." She kept her goals deliberately vague, because in reality, if she kept up her current grades, she'd graduate summa cum laude. On top of that, it was well within her reach to do so, and steam on to any university she wants to go.

They climbed to the top of the halfpipe, neatly waiting their turn. "After you, kid," Korra said, elaborately gesturing Jinora to take the plunge.

The younger girl smiled, and dropped into the pipe gracefully, picking up that little bit of extra speed she'd need to do some tricks. Since it was still early, she stuck with a few simple 180's, before hooking the back wheels of her board over the edge she started on, elegantly dismounting the pipe and making a mock-bow to Korra. "Your turn, _grandma,_ " Jinora teased with a wink. In truth, Korra was only four years or so older than her, but they still enjoyed teasing each other with it. The older girl hated the fact that she'd already passed 20.

At first, she fared just fine. Much like Jinora, Korra opted to keep things simple for now, sticking to a couple of 180's, and it wasn't until she got overly ambitious that she wiped out. Because of the way Korra landed, her board shot straight up the side of the pipe, giving Jinora ample opportunity to snatch it out of mid-air. "Are you done for now, or do you want to embarrass yourself a little more?" Jinora smirked, knowing full well that the older girl hated it when she did that.

-"You know Jin, has anyone ever told you that you've got a mouth on you?"

"All the time, I've learned to ignore it." The younger girl dropped in again, only to ride off the side, and gracefully dismounted to hand Korra back her board. Their attention was briefly drawn away to the edge of the park, where someone on a very loud motorcycle arrived, feeling the need to rev the engine a little more.

The girls ignored it, and they instead made their way to the ramps with rails, where, after a few tries, Jinora managed to pull off a perfect grind, earning some deep respect from the onlookers. She was on her way back, when she suddenly heard a familiar voice. "Well I'll be fucked."

That voice could only belong to one person, and it took her so much by surprise that she wiped out. " _Kai_?!" Not knowing what else to do, Jinora scrambled to her feet, and quickly dragged him by the arm behind the electricity shack on the edge of the park. "What the hell are you doing here?!" she asked on a hushed whisper.

-"I could ask you the same thing," he smirked back. "How did the biggest nerd of Tashi High end up here, pulling off some pretty impressive moves?"

Even though she didn't like to admit it to herself, hearing him say that made her bubble up a little. In school, Jinora and Kai did _not_ get along, not even a little bit. She hated his completely aloof attitude, she hated his utter disrespect to all things authoritarian, she hated how he felt the need to ride around everywhere on that ridiculously loud motorcycle, she hated that she'd given in to his impossibly green puppy-dog eyes and helped him pass history last year, but most of all, she hated that she was just that teeny, tiny, bit attracted to him.

Bad-boy attitude aside, it wasn't very hard to see why. Tall, dark, and handsome for starters, paired with his neatly kept undercut and those massive innocent eyes (though the rest of him wasn't the least bit innocent, Jinora knew that he'd been arrested at least twice) and pretty much every girl in school and even a few guys were fawning over him.

"I'm doing this to blow off steam, you don't have any steam to blow off," Jinora said, still pushing him to the back wall of the shed.

Kai wrenched himself free. "On the contrary, try being locked up in a tiny apartment with five screaming foster siblings."

Jinora let her head hang. "Just... just don't tell anyone, okay? I definitely don't want my parents finding out about this." Her father would be livid if he heard about her sneaking out pretty much every other night.

His typical slanted smirk grew. "Convince me."

"Without me, you would have spectacularly flunked history last year. We can agree a fail like that would have broken records."

-"Probably, but I'm not convinced. I paid you for those sessions, remember?"

"Damn it, I was hoping you wouldn't remember that." She sighed. "Fine... What do you want?"

He thought for a moment, before a diabolical smile started lining his face. "Give me a kiss, and I'll never say a word about this. Always been curious what it's like to kiss the biggest nerd in school."

This completely blind-sided Jinora. "What?! Screw you, I'm not doing that!"

-"Very well. Remind me, your sister Ikki, was she in eighth or ninth grade?" Kai smirked, knowing full well that she didn't have a choice.

Jinora sighed again and weighed her options, realizing there were none. "Alright. One kiss, you don't tell anyone about any of this, and you help me keep up the guise to everyone here." Truth be told, because of that tiny bit of infuriating attraction she felt for him, part of her had wondered about kissing him before. Of course, she'd been quick to shoo those thoughts away, but it was all too real now. He clicked the strap of her helmet loose, gently discarding it and pushing her hoodie off, letting her hair fall over her ears.

"Relax, Gyatso," Kai said, leaning in close.

When their lips actually met, it was nothing like Jinora had expected. Kai was surprisingly thoughtful and gentle, but not in a bad way. Firm but tender, and not the messy wet heap she'd been anticipating. The way he gently put a hand in her neck, the slightly rough skin caressing hers, it was great. On top of that, he tasted earthly, but spicy at the same time, and there was a hint of cigarettes in there, which, oddly enough, Jinora didn't mind one bit. In fact, it was surprisingly nice, and she wasn't in any rush to break away from him. When he did, Jinora was slightly disappointed, though she'd never let him in on that fact.

-"Was that so bad?" he smirked, his breath brushing over her lips.

Jinora smiled back. "I've had worse..." she bluffed.

-"Ahem," Korra announced herself from around the corner. "I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

-"Nope," Kai cheerfully replied, handing Jinora back her helmet. "We're quite finished here. I only dropped by to say hi." He gave Jinora a wink, and walked off to hang out with his own friends.

Korra raised a smug eyebrow to the younger girl. "Only saying hi, huh?"

Jinora playfully nudged her in the shoulder. "Shut up." The rest of the evening was an endless string of teases and semi-innuendos, all aimed at Jinora. Of course, it had taken all of three minutes before the entire damn park knew what had transpired between her and Kai, and joined Korra in the teasing. Defending herself in such a predicament was an exercise in futility, so she resigned to doing the one thing she knew would shut everyone up: completing that full 720.

She opted to try this in the bowl, where the raised walls and concrete ramps gave her the best chances of success. After a couple of 360's and even a sloppy 540, she found herself perched on the edge, about to drop in down a nearly vertical wall, forcing herself to focus, but was distracted when she heard Kai's bike rev up. He was standing at the edge of the park, watching her, the look he was throwing was definitely taunting.

Her mind drifted off to their kiss again, the feeling of Kai's lips on hers, gentle but affirmative, that damn hint of cigarettes, pulling her in with that tiny element of taboo... Jinora shook her head, forcing herself to focus on the job at hand. "Come on, just drop in, extra step in the middle, and nail it," she muttered to herself. It turns out to be easier said than done.

The drop in was the easy part, letting gravity do the work, but she mistimed the step in the middle, causing a massive wipeout. Red-faced with embarrassment, she climbed out of the bowl, where Korra was waiting for her with a massive smug smirk on her face. "Are you done, or were you planning on embarrassing yourself a little bit more?" she reiterated Jinora's earlier statement.

The younger girl sighed. "Yeah, yeah, I deserved that."

-"Looks like the boy saying hi had an impact on you. I wonder if every greeting has that effect on you..." Korra teased, thoughtfully rubbing her chin.

"For fuck's sake," Jinora muttered under her breath. (Jin was allowed to say that, Jinora wasn't.) "I'm never going to hear the end of this, am I?"

-"Not until someone goes through something more embarrassing. Why didn't you ever tell me that you and Fong were an item?"

"Because we're not, he's an insufferable asshole."

-"You were getting awfully friendly with him."

"Well, he is handsome." She sighed. "Look, Korra, I don't have to justify myself to anyone, least of all you. I'm not the closet lesbian here who kisses the hot girl from my mechanics class at practically every opportunity."

-"Hey," Korra protested. "I'm not entirely in the closet, and she is very hot."

Jinora smiled, knowing full well that she hit the sweet spot. Korra wasn't exactly shy with her sexuality (at least, Jinora had caught her kissing a girl at more than one occasion) but had yet to come out to certain key people in her life, such as her parents and a few close friends, so she had begged the younger girl to keep it quiet. "One leg out maybe, but you have a long way to go. I'll help you if you really want me to, but you should get to it."

Jinora glanced at the clock on her phone. "Alright, I should get going. Gotta start fresh in the morning." Jinora pulled the older girl in for a quick hug, before taking a few steps back. "I'll make sure I have my mind straight again the next time I'll come by. Make sure I don't leave another face-shaped dent on the floor of the bowl."

The older girl chuckled. "Good idea. See you later, Jin."

With a few quick steps, Jinora was on her way back to the watershed shack, and safely stored away her skateboard and helmet like she did every night she went out. At her house, the lights were out, which was a good thing.

Getting back into her room was somewhat precarious, and did require the utmost of her skills. Balancing on the wall was difficult, but it wasn't until she jumped onto her windowsill that things actually started getting tricky. The ledge was narrow, and to make matters worse, that damn kiss was still lingering through her mind. On top of everything else, Ikki's room was right next to Jinora's, and her younger sister was a light sleeper. The slightest sound would wake her, so Jinora had taken precautions by putting a few drops of oil into her window.

Tonight though, everything went smoothly, and soon, the skater found herself back in her room, this actually readying herself for bed.

This part was always nerve-racking, despite her caution and light-footed nature. Every sound she heard made her look up in fear, worried that either one of her parents would come knocking, heard her come home or something. Still, it was never enough to make her stop going out.

Having brushed her teeth (long live having a sink in her own room) and put herself in bed, her head was finally cleared. Well, that is except for that kiss of course. How come it was still on her mind? Sure, it was a good kiss, but nothing _that_ spectacular, right?

Right?

* * *

 **AN** : _Before you ask, I don't know the first thing about skating, so all terms and stuff come from the one source that resulted in more degrees than any other: Google. If I got any of them wrong, I do apologize. Also, I loosely based the skate park Jinora goes to on the park in Los Santos, from GTA San Andreas. You can go to the GTA Wiki for a picture._

 _On a different note, I have to give credit where it's due. I based this on a fic I read a few months ago, called Holding My Breath. It had promise, and I gave the author some advice, but she didn't do anything with that. From there, I went back to it, stripped the story down to the prompt, and ended up writing this. This is probably going to turn into a full story, sort of like my side-story when I feel like writing something a little lighter than The Callgirl._


	2. Espresso and Blackmail

-"Jinora, get up, you're going to be late," Pema walked into her room, waking the teenager up. She wasted no time, and drew open the curtains, bathing the room in light, and making Jinora groan. "Mom, it's early..."

-"If you don't get up now, you're going to be late to school, and you have that calculus test you spent all week studying for." She eyed her daughter up, seeing Jinora still looked exhausted. "Are you alright?"

The younger girl sighed. "Barely slept." She knew she had to think up a lie quickly, the real reason would be a little awkward to share. "That test has me worried, you know? And it's stupid, I can probably do it, but it's like my mind keeps telling me I can't."

Pema slowly nodded. "Okay. You just go take a shower, I'll make you some eggs for breakfast, how does that sound?"

A smile appeared on Jinora's face. "Sounds great, Mom. Thanks." With that, her mother turned around and went back downstairs. Jinora willed herself out of bed and gathered her things quickly and went to the shower, making doubly sure she'd beat Ikki, who was notorious in their household for taking long showers. She'd set the record on two and a half hours once, which was actually kind of amazing.

Jinora felt lousy. What she'd told her mother was true, she barely slept over night. Numerous times of telling herself to get over that damn kiss hadn't gotten her anywhere, she'd gotten up twice to drink something, but that just resulted in her having to pee fifteen minutes later both times, and nothing else she had tried worked.

Looking in the mirror, she saw the massive bags that had formed under her eyes. "I'm gonna kill Kai when I get to school," she grumbled to herself.

After her shower, she sauntered down for her breakfast, where Pema was waiting for her with a plate of scrambled eggs. The smell of it was simply delicious, and exactly what Jinora needed to motivate herself to look a little cheerier.

-"What period do you have your test?"

This made her sigh. "First period, so I'm only gonna be half awake for it, along with the rest of my class. I swear, that woman has it out for us."

Pema raised an eyebrow. "I suppose you mean your well-respected math teacher, Mrs. Hou-Ting?"

"Yeah, that would be her." This had Jinora slightly worried. Normally, she wouldn't be this sassy. Perhaps Jin was carrying over from last night? Would make sense though, since she didn't get any sleep.

-"You should keep those kinds of opinions to yourself in school. It can only damage you if teachers know you don't like them."

Jinora nodded. "Thanks, Mom, I'll keep that in mind." She finished her breakfast, and went back to her room to finish dressing herself. With generous amounts of make-up, she managed to cover up the worst of the bags, even if she did look a bit like a plastic doll now. (Lesser of two evils and all that.) She put on her glasses, bunched her hair up in a simple bun, and was ready to face the day. Her wardrobe consisted of a simple pair of jeans, a white button-up, and a loose waistcoat.

As soon as she came back down again, Pema handed her a small cup. "Drink this."

Jinora sniffed it, and it was most certainly coffee. "Mom, I don't even like coffee."

-"I know that, but if you go to take a test like this, it takes the edge off you. Just hold your nose shut, and drink it one go. It's a shot of espresso, it'll keep you awake, because I have rarely seen you so tired."

With a sigh, the younger girl conceded, took the cup, and drank it in one go. Somehow, her mother had managed to cool it down to a temperature where it was drinkable, and it wasn't long before she felt a _lot_ less tired than she did a few minutes. "Whoa, that's strong stuff."

Her mother chuckled. "I know. Now go on, your father is gonna take you to school."

Over the course of the ride there, Jinora felt more and more energetic, to the point that she practically bounced out of the car. "Are you okay there, Jinora?" Tenzin asked when they were nearly there. "You're acting like your sister."

-"Hey!" Ikki protested from the back seat.

"Yeah, I'm good, Mom just made me some coffee to keep me awake."

-"Oh boy," he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Your mother's espresso is very potent, to say the least. Well, we're here. Good luck with your test."

"Thanks Dad! Bye!" Her father had been right, she was very excitable. This was probably the first time Jinora made it out of the car and into the school before her sister.

Fen, Jinora's best friend, seemed surprised by the energetic nature of her ordinarily collected friend. "What the hell was in your breakfast?"

"Eggs and espresso, I'm telling you, it was good stuff!"

-"I can see that. Are you even allowed to take a test on drugs?"

Jinora just saw the golden opportunity to shrug. "Meh, if caffeine is a drug, all of the teachers would be addicts."

Fen chuckled, and they made their way to the classroom, where Hou-Ting let them in. The girls sat next to each other in their usual seats, against the left wall, third row from the back.

Right before the teacher started handing out the test, Kai came walking in, his usual self-satisfied grin on his face. What wasn't usual though, is that he made his way to Jinora. "Morning. Sleep well after last night?"

If looks could kill, Kai would be firmly in his grave by now. "What are you doing?" she brusquely asked him.

-"I'll take that as a 'no'," he said, raising his eyebrows. With that, he walked over to the other side of the room, sitting with his own friends.

-"What was that about?" Fen immediately asked. "And what happened last night? Did you not tell me something?"

Jinora loudly sighed. "He's just being a bigger douchebag than usual, is my best guess."

Fen didn't look convinced, but she decided to drop the issue for now, as they had to get through a calculus test, and it was promising to be hard.

It was.

In all honesty, Jinora had no problem at all to stay awake during the rather difficult questions, even towards the end, when the effects of the caffeine were starting to wear off. It was mostly that she couldn't help but distract herself by stealing the occasional glance of Kai every now and then.

Most of the time, he seemed to be slagging, and not at all focused on his test, which kind of amazed her. Either he had become absolutely brilliant at math and was breezing through it (which seems very unlikely), or he knew he was going to fail anyway and didn't even bother to try (probably that one).

Towards the end of the test, he looked back at Jinora, giving her a sly wink, which had her both blushing and internally fulminating at the same time. Why did he have to be so devilishly handsome? Maybe it was just the fact that he had about four inches on her. Or the little ring in his left eyebrow. Or the leather jacket he always wore that accentuated his slightly muscular frame. (She suspected that wasn't a coincidence.) She quickly shook her head, and forced herself to focus back on her test, making sure she could still scribble down the last answers before the hour was over.

After they'd handed their tests, Fen went to Jinora again. "Alright, time for you to come clean: what is going on between you and Kai? You kept looking over to him, and he kept looking back."

Jinora sighed. "There's nothing going on, okay?"

-"You're not falling for him, are you?"

"What?! No! Come on, you know we don't even get along a little bit!"

At this, Fen shrugged. "Weirder things have happened. Besides, you're getting awfully defensive here, which does point in that direction."

Jinora knew her friend had a good point there, so the best thing to do now was to silence the trickle of doubt with a flood of truth. "Look, he's handsome, I've always admitted that, and I've hated that I feel that way for equally as long. Happy now?" Fen stayed silent just long enough for Jinora to break away from this conversation. "I gotta get to history, and you have geography to worry about. See you later!" The girls weach went their respective ways, Jinora to the top floor of the building, where all the history classes were.

It was a dreary lesson, and even though history was one of her favorites, even Jinora was struggling to keep her focus on the blackboard. Kai being in the same class didn't help, and her mind once again wandered off to their kiss of last night.

-"Mr. Fong, could you keep your attention on the board, and off your phone?" her teacher mentioning Kai's name had Jinora looking up as well, and she glanced over to him, seeing the phone in his lap. "Next time you use that, it's mine for the week."

Kai raised two empty hands in defense, though he'd simply put the phone on his leg. "I got nothing, sir."

-"Don't take me for a fool. Now..." he continued his lesson in his monotonous voice, droning on about years, and events, and trade disputes that didn't really end up mattering, and Jinora already knew all of this, so she glanced over to Kai again.

He made a gesture of typing and pointed at her, which she interpreted as him sending her a text. When their teacher was writing something on the board, she gracefully leaned down, taking her phone out of her bag, and seeing that Kai had indeed sent her a text.

 **06 376 82 947:** _You seem very distracted. Finally believe I'm a good kisser?_

Jinora shot him a death glare, and put her phone away before she would get caught as well. She'd need a heart to heart with him, so after the bell had rung, she stopped him before he could make it out of the classroom. "Auditorium. Take the long route," she brusquely told him, and he just smiled.

-"Will do, Gyatso."

The auditorium was in the furthest corner of the school, and was typically empty in the first break. It was the only place where they could talk, far away from prying eyes. The room itself was rather beautiful, as it used to be a chapel, so the stain-glass windows were still in place, bathing the room in a very soft light.

As soon as Kai came in, Jinora sprung up. "What the hell was all that about?!"

He nonchalantly shrugged. "Just a little bit of fun. I'm even looking out for you, I thought you might appreciate that."

Jinora groaned. "We had a deal. I kept up my end, now you keep up yours, so no more innuendos and texts, got it?"

-"A true stick-in-the-mud, as per usual. Though if you're honest, that stick might just be somewhere the sun don't shine."

She sighed. "Come on, focus. If people figure out what happened because of your carelessness, I'm taking you down with me."

Kai scoffed, but it did succeed in capturing his attention. "And how would you plan on doing that?"

"Tell the truth: that A) your word is useless and B) you have to blackmail girls into kissing you." He stayed silent, but the look on his face told Jinora enough: she had him backed into a corner. People would have no reason not to believe her, and Kai already had reputation for not being the most trustworthy person in school. It wasn't terrible, but throw something like this on top of that, it certainly wouldn't help him. "Oh," she snarkily finished for him. "Just keep your mouth shut, and we'll be fine." Jinora made for the door, but he stopped her before she could walk through.

-"You wanna know what I think?"

"Not particularly." She meant that, but did stop and turn to hear him out.

Kai was unfazed by her blank response, and continued. "Part of me wants to believe this whole charade is sincere, that you're actually pissed about me being careless. But the other part of me thinks you're just frustrated, that because of all people, it was _me_ who gave you your first kiss."

This had her shocked. How the hell did he figure that out? Sure, she wasn't exactly known as the school slut, but that she hadn't had her first kiss until last night was something that she kept carefully under wraps.

By the time she realized she had been quiet, flustered, and flabbergasted for too long to deny it any longer, it was too late. "Wha... How did you..."

His slanted smirk grew. "You're not my first rodeo, Gyatso, and neither are you my first first. If you want to practice a little more, just give me the heads up." Jinora was unable to say anything, so Kai just made for the exit himself. "That's okay, you think about it. Meanwhile, I think you should wait a few minutes, don't want to have people talking about where we were." He gave her a sly wink, and was on his way.

Jinora just stood there, rarely having felt this embarrassed. He had completely figured her out, and was able to do all that from just her reputation and one kiss. (Damn him for that.) "Fucking hell, Fong," she muttered.

Whether it was Jin or Jinora saying that, she honestly couldn't tell.

* * *

 _Right guys, second chapter here for you. Please leave a review, I'd love to know your thoughts, whether they be good or bad. Also, if Kai's phone number happens to be yours, I do apologize, it's just a random set of numbers I picked._


	3. The North Point Mall

The list of names was growing shorter and shorter, and Jinora was growing more and more nervous with every name that was mentioned. (Or rather, those that _weren't_ mentioned.)

-"And Jinora will work with Kai," Tarrlok finished.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me!" Jinora protested out loud, turning every head in class her way, but for once, she didn't care. This was going to be a big assignment, and if she got a bad grade on this, it would definitely drag her average down. The chances of it being bad were increasing exponentially now that she was paired with Kai.

-"Miss Gyatso, I shouldn't need to remind you that no one is paired with a partner he or she would normally work with, and I'm not about to make an exception for you."

The bell rung for lunch, and everyone started packing their stuff, but she wasn't about to let it go just like that. Jinora walked up to Tarrlok's desk, and he had seen her coming, so he was already leaning back in his chair. "Sir, with all due respect, but this is ridiculous. It'll either end up with my grade being dragged down unreasonably much, me doing all the work, or both!"

-"Then you better keep Mr. Fong on a short leash to make sure neither of those things happen. The whole point of this exercise is to make people get to know their class better, including the people they wouldn't normally socialize with. I've based the list on previous project pairings, and made it as fair as possible."

"But Sir..." Jinora started to protest, but it wasn't working.

-" _That's final_ ," Tarrlok decisively said. "One more word of protest, and you'll be explaining my being unreasonable to the dean."

He was being completely unfair, and Jinora just couldn't figure out why. She knew being sent to dean probably wasn't going to end well, but she had to try, though.

However, right before she could open her mouth, her attention was drawn away. "Gyatso," Kai said from the door. He nudged his head, gesturing her to follow him. Once they were outside and out of Tarrlok's earshot, she wanted to get mad at him, but he once again beat her to it. "You know that protesting is pointless, right? He hates us both, it's not a secret that we don't like each other, and he teamed us up for that reason."

This surprised her. "What? Why would he hate me? I mean, you're obvious, but I'm one of the best students in his class."

A slanted grin appeared on his face. "Exactly. You're smarter than he is, and not afraid to show it. This is his chance to get back at you for that."

Jinora sighed. "Oh for crying out loud."

-"You can scream and yell at him until your lungs give out, but let's just face it: we're stuck together."

She pinched the bridge of her nose. "And I suppose you find this real inconvenient, don't you? My grade will suffer from it, and no matter the outcome, yours gets a bump. All you have to do for it, is make nice with me for a month or so."

Kai made a 'fair enough'-face, and smiled. "I guess I do." He stuck his hands in his pockets, and walked away. "But Gyatso?" he said, turning around one more time. "Might wanna remember that I just saved you an hour of detention."

If he wanted to leave her fuming even more, he definitely succeeded. Jinora wasn't a vindictive person, and wasn't one for actively disliking people, but she'd gladly make an exception for Kai. That boy could push her buttons like no one else could, buttons she didn't even know she had.

In the two weeks it had been since their kiss, and even though it hadn't been _that_ bad in school, he had been almost unbearable every time she went to the park. Unfortunately, since everyone there already knew what had happened, she couldn't hold their deal against him. On the plus side, since no one had made the connection with Jin outside of Kai, her secret was safe.

* * *

"I mean, what was he thinking?! Pairing me up _Kai Fong!_ " They were sitting at their family dinner, and Jinora now had the chance to blow off the first half of her steam by fuming over Tarrlok's decision to pair them up.

-"There isn't a lot you can do about it now, so you are going to have to make the best of it," Pema offered up.

Jinora sighed, knowing that was kind of true. "Well, he could help a lot by _not_ being so smug about it, which he is being, as per freakin' usual."

-"Sounds more like you _like him_ ," Ikki teased, but the older sister definitely wasn't in the mood for that now.

"Shut up, Ikki, I'm being serious here. You know what he's like, this is going to hurt my grade. Badly."

Her father spoke up. "Jinora, I think you've made your point, no need to lash out at your sister. You're simply going to turn it into a high quality product like you always do, and motivate Kai to do the same. I trust you can do that?"

(Not exactly the response she was looking for.) "Sure," she replied, only half-meaning it.

After dinner, Jinora did a little bit more homework, but she really wanted to go to the skatepark right now. She badly needed to vent her frustration, preferably at something other than her family, so she decided to go for the tried and true way. Unfortunately, going to bed at nine o'clock would definitely raise a few eyebrows, so she did a little bit of everything (texting, reading, watching TV, homework, even tidying up,) before deciding that ten thirty would work.

Going through her routine of changing, sneaking out, and fetching her gear, was just that: so routine that it was easy

When Jinora was coming up to the skate park, the sight that greeted her wasn't good. First of all, the familiar strum of rap music wasn't there. Second, there was a large crowd of people outside the fences. Third, and perhaps most pressingly, there were an awful lot flashing blue and red lights behind said crowd.

"Korra!" she yelled once Jinora spotted her friend. "What's going on?"

-"Some dumb fuck got caught with a bag of grass, he put up a fight, cop called in his buddies, the result is this."

Jinora elbowed her way forward, spotting at least half a dozen police cars. "Oh boy," she muttered to herself. "What do you think happens now?" she asked Korra once she made her way back again.

-"No idea," the older girl replied. "Worst case scenario: they level this place and build a mini-mall in its place. Best case scenario: they leave in an hour."

Jinora raised an unconvinced eyebrow, knowing what was going to come next. "And most likely scenario?"

Korra smiled. "They shut it down for three days, letting us know who's in charge, and then the world keeps on turning."

-"It's total bullshit," Bolin piped up, girlfriend on his arm. They met here at the park, Opal being a skater too. Cute couple, though they might be a little too eager with their PDA's in Jinora's humble opinion. "This is just Mako whipping his dick around, they wouldn't send six squad cars for one guy with weed in his pocket."

Both Korra and Jinora chuckled. "Your brother has enough brass in his pocket to get this kind of attention?" the younger girl asked

-"His nose is so far up Chief Beifong's ass, he can tell you what she had for dinner yesterday," he scoffed, and they all laughed, though Opal playfully nudged him in the shoulder. "At least one of you is ambitious."

He turned to his girlfriend. "Looks like you drew the short straw then."

-"You're the cute one though," she smirked, pressing a quick kiss on his lips, that would have turned (unfortunately) into a full-blown make-out session in the street, had Korra not intervened.

-"Knock it off guys, we've got kids here."

They broke away from their round of tonsil hockey, both of them a slight blush on their faces. "Now what?" Jinora asked, more to break the awkward silence than anything else.

-"Well," Korra started, rubbing her chin. "Every cop in a ten block radius is right here. Bet you guys ten bucks the North Point Mall is completely devoid of security?"

Jinora (or, more likely, Jin,) smiled. "Let's go," she said, taking off in the general direction of the Mall. The others soon followed, and it turned into something of a race. (Korra won, she has the strongest legs.) She also knew a way in that didn't require breaking any windows: the emergency exit that led to the first floor of the parking garage could be opened from the outside.

The North Point Mall was known at the park as a skater's paradise: rails (which were actually benches), perfectly smooth, marble floors, nice and warm inside, and the cherry on the cake: a spiral stairwell with walls on the outside of the stairs. Riding one floor down in a perfect 180 degree turn was sort of a dream to most, as it was A) ridiculously difficult and B) properly risky, because security at the Mall was strict, even after closing time.

Now however, that was different. With the police tied up at the park, the four made their way inside quietly, where they found the mall completely deserted.

In the back of her mind, Jinora knew that she was trespassing here, but it was doing no harm, right? As long as they didn't damage anything, nobody would ever know they were here. On top of that, Jin knew it was probably going to be good fun, and that she could score some serious points if she actually managed to make that spiral-staircase-turn.

-"You're not actually thinking about making the turn, are you?" Korra asked,

"Of course I am," Jinora cheerfully responded. "I'm never going to get another opportunity like this, so it's now or never."

Korra scoffed. "With how sharp you've been over the past week, I'm surprised you made it here, let alone that you can make it past one of the most awesome moves in Republic City."

Both Opal and Bolin nodded in unison, knowing full well that Korra was right on that one.

Jinora knew it was a bad idea, but after having royally fulminated over Kai during dinner, her mood had calmed significantly. "I can do this, I know I can." She kicked her board under her arm, pacing towards a stairwell. "Get ready to film this!" Jinora yelled back.

-"Or get ready to call an ambulance..." Opal muttered.

"I heard that!"

There was a hint of doubt, like Jinora was telling Jin it was a bad idea. (Of course, Jin couldn't really give a damn.) It was promising to be a mighty difficult, timing the jump, catching the centrifugal force with her knees, and leveling herself again in time for the landing one floor below.

The little wheelchair ramp was perfect for catching some extra speed, and Jinora was doing everything short of calculating the exact numbers of the physics involved in this little stunt. Bolin and Opal were one floor down getting ready to film it, and Korra was probably preparing some form of superior smugness.

With one deep breath, Jinora cast the metaphorical die. (Though if she screwed this up, she would probably die of shame, if not from her injuries.) The wheelchair ramp did its work, and at just the right speed, she kicked off. Pretty much as soon as she had her board airborne, she grabbed it, hunkering down as far as she could to give the laws of physics maximum advantage.

Jinora went in facing down, and the angle at which her wheels hit the wall wasn't perfect, but it cancelled out, pushing her perfectly along the wall. The sensation of letting physics take over was extremely weird, as turning on such a narrow circle normally wasn't possible.

Coming off the wall again was actually the trickiest part, as she had to rapidly turn her board from fully vertical to fully horizontal, and it was only with a hefty scoop of luck that she managed to stay on her board.

She rolled past Korra, whose expression was absolutely priceless, and it put a smile on Jinora's face. Perfectly content with herself, she kicked up her board and put it under her arm, right in front of the older girl. "Humble pie for breakfast, lunch, and dinner," she smirked.

-"Holy shit..." Korra muttered, unable to make anything else of it.

In reality, Jinora's hands were shaking from the rush of adrenaline, but she had to hide that little fact to shut Korra up, which worked very well. Opal and Bolin came rushing to them as well, gushing over Jinora making the turn.

Riding both the high and her skateboard, the night was huge fun. A few more people showed up to the mall later on, apparently having the same idea Korra did. Not that it mattered so much, there was space enough for all of them to skate, even showing off to each other. Opal was fairly eager to show the film of Jinora completing the half-spiral, and everyone was equally impressed.

All in all, it was a brilliant evening, reminding Jinora of the reason she was doing this in the first place: blowing off steam. Towards the end, she felt lighter, her carefree spirit returning.

But that all changed in an instant: there was a sharp noise, and all the fluorescent lights flicked on, not just the low emergency lighting and residual lights from the shops; this was the main lighting of the hallways.

-"Police!" someone shouted, and this was their cue.

"Time to go," Jinora jovially said, and made for their exit on the first floor, Korra, Bolin, and Opal hot on her heels. Since they already had a big head start, it wasn't easy to get away from them, but the police wasn't giving up that easily. They had the parking garage covered with another unit, though didn't know exactly where to go in. This gave Jinora and her friends the advantage, over the one they already had of being on wheels instead of on foot.

They all made it down the car ramp (two successful 180 degree turns in one night, that's got to be some kind of record), but there was a police car waiting for them at the bottom. Fortunately, they hadn't parked very sharp, and they all made it past the car.

-"Stop, police!" Jinora heard someone yell, and it had her worried. That voice... it was definitely familiar.

She was being chased by her own aunt Lin.

It was a good thing Jinora had her hoodie on to make her more unrecognizable, but there was a problem. It was her favorite, faded orange with a blue-grey arrow running from the tip of the hood all the way down her back. That was very recognizable.

She'd definitely had to bluff her way out of that.

Fortunately, getting away from the cops was easy on their boards, especially with the downhill ramps, and soon, they were out of reach. But Jinora knew that she'd have to get home and into her bed quickly, before Lin would call Pema and ask her whether or not her oldest daughter was actually in her bed.

She quickly excused herself, and made for her way back home, but this presented her with a problem: if she'd go by the watershed shack, it would mean a massive detour, and if she didn't she would risk having to take her board and helmet with her, into her house, and hope that her mother wouldn't find it.

Jinora decided on the latter, and luck turned out to be on her side: the lights were off, and while sneaking back into her room while carrying a skateboard was tricky, she managed to do it without making noise.

Still, the worrywart in her still wasn't entirely at ease. What if Lin had gotten a clear look at her and told her mother? What if her mother didn't believe Jinora? What if it was all a ruse, and Pema already knew the full truth?

Jinora sighed, and decided to worry about it again in the morning.

* * *

 _Two more things guys: 1) Yes, this chapter was named after the eponymous mall in GTA Vice City. Love that game. 2) This is probably going to be one of the longer chapters. I don't hold these to the same standards of quality like I do with The Callgirl, hence why updates can be a bit more frequent. Don't be surprised if I come up with chapters that remain in the triple digits. Ciao!_


	4. Do or Do Not

-"Jinora, Aunt Lin just called me, she wanted to know if you were out last night," Pema asked over the table while Jinora was munching away at her breakfast.

It was just like she had expected, and thus, planned for. Unfortunately, Jin was the one taking charge over the defense of this one. "What are you talking about? I was here, you know that. I went to bed early because I was tired. Why would she ask?"

-"Because she chased someone with your posture and your hoodie out of the North Point Mall late last night, and wants to rule you out as a suspect. I told her that was ludicrous, and that you were home. Are you going to make me a liar?"

Jin had trouble not laughing. "Are you kidding me? What would I be doing at the mall at such a time that the police would be chasing me out?"

-"Trespassing. Look, Jinora, I don't want to believe her, but she was fairly adamant that it was you."

"Mom, you know that I wouldn't do that." (Though Jin would, but Pema wasn't privy to that little detail.) "So she saw someone in comfortable clothes that I have as well, which are made by the million in China, and that automatically makes it me?"

Pema sighed. "Alright, I suppose that's true. You finish your breakfast now, I'll take you and your sister to school in a bit."

Jinora nodded, and turned back to her breakfast. In reality, she hated lying to her mother, but it was almost like she couldn't stop herself this time. Covering up the truth about being in bed while actually being out on the streets was one thing, but straight up lying about it, and making her own aunt Lin seem incompetent by association? That's a whole new level.

What scared her was that it seemed like she was only half in control over what she'd just said. Jin was starting to make her way into Jinora's everyday life, and that wasn't a development she would be embracing anytime soon.

* * *

Jinora was definitely _not_ looking forward to what she was about to do, but it had to happen. "Kai, got a minute?" she asked as class was just done, and they were starting the first break.

-"Sure, what's up?"

"I want to start on our project, today if you don't have anything else."

He raised an unconvinced eyebrow and scoffed. "Already? Gyatso, we have over a month to finish that, no rush whatsoever."

She was almost expecting that for a reply, but actually hearing it did make her sigh. "Unlike you, I don't procrastinate until the very last moment so that I can get a merely passable grade. Do you have time after school or not?"

Kai thought for a moment, before nodding. "Yeah, I can make that. Your place?"

Now it was Jinora's turn to scoff. "Yeah right, and give my sister ammunition for the next half decade? I think not. Your place."

-"No. Fucking. Way." It fell silent between them, given how decisively Kai had said that. It was obvious he didn't want anyone there, and Jinora was kind of waiting for an explanation, but it never came. "So..." he continued after a while. "Library?"

She shook her head. "People want to work there in peace and quiet, it'd be kind of rude to go sit there and hold an interview. I'll ask a teacher who actually likes me for a classroom. I'll text you the details."

Jinora kept her word, and had managed to persuade her chemistry teacher, Ms. Izumi, into letting them use her classroom for the afternoon, provided they wouldn't make a mess of it. A simple text to Kai, who she still didn't see the use of storing in her phonebook, and the meet was set.

* * *

A glance at her watch confirmed it. Fifteen minutes. He was fifteen minutes late, and they should have been out of their last class at the same time, even though they didn't share it.

With a frustrated groan, she smacked her glasses onto the table and rubbed her eyes, and reached for her phone in her bag. Jinora was beyond caring that she wasn't allowed to use her phone in here, she was just going to call him what the hell was taking him so long.

At that precise moment, Kai stepped inside, smug smirk lining his face. "You're not supposed to use that in school, you know."

She wasn't amused. "You're late."

-"Relax, I was working ahead, doing some preparations." He opened his bag, pulling a piece of paper out of a folder. "There you go, an opinionated article on a classmate I wouldn't normally socialize with."

Jinora took it from him, fairly convinced it wouldn't even be close to the specifications Tarrlok had given them. "You do realize that if a teacher gives you a month to finish an assignment, you're kind of obliged to use all that time?"

Kai scoffed, while Jinora started a quick scan of what he'd written down. "I'm not obliged to do anything," he simply shrugged.

"You are obliged to do better than this, this is rubbish. Grammar is all over the map, sentence construction is off, not to mention that you didn't even get some basic facts right. Simplest example: my full name isn't Jinora Gyatso, if you'd have asked, you'd have known that I have a middle name." She slid the paper across the table. "Start over, and this time, get it right."

He rolled his eyes. "What is the point? Tarrlok's going to fail us either way. Opinions in an article? You and me together? This is his chance to fuck us over big time, no matter what. We could write something better than the Ulysses and Odyssey combined and he'd still find a way to pull the rug out from under us."

By now, Jinora's patience was really being pushed to its very limit. "You listen to me, and you listen well," she started in a dangerously low voice. "In the thirteen or so years that I have been going to school, I have _never_ handed in an assignment that I didn't do my best for. If you want to leave it at this, you go ahead, but then I'll hand in a blank sheet of paper, and fail us both. Sure, my parents will be pissed, but I'm just gonna throw you under the bus, they'll understand. My grade can take a hit like that, can yours?"

His silence was more than enough confirmation for Jinora, so she stood up, towering over him for the first time in her life. "We are going to do this project, and we are going to do it right. You are going to throw this thing away, and start over, doing it _my_ way. We're going to write a piece so good that Tarrlok will kiss the ground on which we walk, and if it fails because he hates us, so be it, but I want us to _fucking **TRY**_!" she yelled, prodding her finger into his chest.

Her rare display of fury worked, as Jinora saw a twinge of real fear in Kai's eyes. She backed up a few paces, letting a fragile silence fall between them. "I am prepared to give you a shot here," she said, much calmer now, almost quietly, in fact. "Meet me halfway." In truth, her heart was pounding in her throat, because this was the first time Jin had gotten away from her outside of the skatepark. Jinora would have never yelled at someone like that, but somehow, Kai managed to push her that far.

-"Okay," he hesitantly said after a very long pause. "I'll work with you. Where do you want to start?"

Jinora smiled, knowing full well she had him marching to her beat.

* * *

 _Quick note: that last scene of Jinora yelling at Kai was inspired by a similar scene in House of Cards, season three, episode two. I've spent my weekend binging the fourth season, and it's a show you should absolutely go and see right now._


	5. Groundwork

-"Alright, let's do this. Full name?"

"Jinora Katara Gyatso."

-"Age?"

"Don't know my age, Fong?"

-"I'm being thorough, like you told me to."

"I'm 17."

-"Family?"

"Parents, oldest with one sister and two brothers, one grandmother left, three aunts, two uncles, and a handful of cousins." Jinora stole a glance of Kai's paper, where he simply write down 'A lot.' "You've gotta be kidding me," she said, rolling her eyes.

Kai simply smiled. "Hey, I agreed to do it your way, but I'm still the one who has to write it. Favorite food?" he stoically continued.

"I think we're going to need something more than 'favorite food, favorite color, favorite animal' if we want to impress Tarrlok."

-"Fair enough." He thought for a moment. "Culinary preferences?"

Jinora sighed. "Oh come on."

-"Hey, I'm trying to do this your way, but if you won't play ball, that's going to be difficult."

"What I mean by doing it my way is that you take it seriously. We need to ask real questions, not the ones second graders would ask when told to write a piece about classmates."

He leaned back in his chair, throwing his pen down on his desk. "Alright, you show me how it's done then, because I honestly don't know where else to start."

"Start at the beginning: we don't get along. We've been in the same class since fifth grade, and we've always been at odds with each other. I think you're a lazy good-for-nothing and you think I'm a pompous stick-in-the-mud."

Kai made a 'fair enough'-face, a small smirk appearing on his face. "Sounds about right. I actually ended up in that class because I failed fifth grade and had to redo the year. And if I recall correctly, we made it into our collective least favorite year." Jinora couldn't help but snicker when remembering that. It was one of very few times she'd gotten in trouble at school, because she'd punched Kai. And in an incredible display of gender equality, he punched back, which blew the starting whistle for a full-blown fight between them. "You hit pretty hard for a girl, I have to admit that," Kai said with a smirk, also thinking back to that fateful day.

"Likewise," she deadpanned. (Watching him internally berate himself for leaving an opening for a counter like that was heavenly.) "Have something to go on now?"

-"You go first, since you're so adamant you can do it."

"I can deliver a better product in less time than you, so you're going to need the advantage of having more time, and don't waste the time we manage to carve out."

Kai very slowly began nodding. "Okay. If that's the way you want to play it." He sat up straight, rubbing his chin. "If I recall correctly, they offered to let you skip fifth grade, and you turned it down. Why?"

Jinora smiled. "That's more like it. I didn't want the extra pressure. Skipping a grade means you have to catch up on the stuff you missed, which means a double workload the next year. I probably could have done it, but it would mean that I'd graduate at seventeen if I'd follow a normal route, sixteen if I'd graduate as a junior, and I wouldn't have any free time on top that. Not worth it."

He wrote most of it down, and it made her smile grow. "Here's my question though: why do you remember such a small detail? Hell the offer was on the table when we weren't even in the same class."

His smirk grew. "Rumor flew around that you considered yourself above that, and I always thought that rather fit. Also, it would have gotten you out of my hair, which would be nice. Give me the peace I've been missing for the past seven years."

"Alright, my turn. Why'd you fail fifth grade?"

-"'Cause I didn't do a damn thing all year long." He briefly fell silent, clearly mulling over if he should give an elaboration. "Trouble at home, so school took a back seat that year."

Jinora considered pressing him on it, but it would be risky. It was something of a public secret that Kai was in foster care, but it was not something he liked to discuss. But given that they'd have to get to know each other better, it was sort of inevitable that the subject would rise at some point. "You were moved from one family to another, weren't you?"

Kai hesitated again. "Yeah," he softly said. "Didn't do anyone any good."

After writing it down, it fell silent. "You know we're going to have to talk about it some point, right? I can't fill 2000 words with your school exploits."

He stayed silent for a while. "My foster parents are fucking assholes, but they are the only ones who are willing to take in the troublemakers like myself. Same goes for my five siblings. Throwing six kids like that together in one small apartment, it's a recipe for disaster. That's all I'm gonna say for now."

Jinora let it sink in, knowing full well she just got to see a side of him that he normally kept from everyone, even his friends. She also realized that suddenly, it seemed much harder to hate him. His aloof an indifferent exterior was just that: an exterior. Inside, there was far more going on than he was letting onto, which naturally had her curious. Unfortunately, he'd shut her out again, so it would have to wait for another time.

* * *

 _Right guys, sorry about the long wait for the short chapter. I tried making this one longer, but it's not sticking. Next one, Jinora'll be back on the board. Also, special thanks to Korrafaangirl for drawing the new cover art for this story._


	6. Shattered Like Glass

The scenario Korra had predicted turned out to be 100 percent accurate: three days was all it took. The first day, there were two police cars waiting for them at the park, the second day it was just one, and on the third it was just a rookie cop who must have pissed off a superior and was forced to put up a yellow plastic ribbon.

But when the fourth day came (Jin was compelled to make a Bible joke here, but stuck to "And she saw that it was good.") the cops and yellow ribbons had gone again, leaving the skate park free and open.

Frustrations in Jinora's head weren't running _as_ rampant as she had thought they would, given that she was working with Kai on their project. She'd expected to come home fuming every day, but that didn't happen. Putting him in his place (square beneath her) worked, and he may or may not have let slip that Jinora could be scary as hell if she wanted to be. Of course, nobody had believed him, but he knew better than to put that theory to the test again, so instead, he played ball, and they were coming along nicely with their project.

Still, the fact was that Jinora and Kai were forced to work together, and that did create friction. But in the interest of beating Tarrlok at his own game, they tried to keep their anger to a minimum when working, though it had to be said that Jinora was out on the street every day instead of every other day, and Kai did take off with more engine roar and wheelspin than normal.

Because it was the first day the park was open again, it was extra busy, which was kind of a shame. Jinora had spotted Kai, but he wasn't going to bother her tonight, they'd already spent more than enough time getting on each other's nerves during the day. She was really hoping she could pull off a few moves, but with so many people in the park, that would be asking for trouble.

As it turned out, it was actually worse than she had imagined. She had just picked up some speed, preparing to do a rail grind, when someone bumped into her - hard. Unable to keep her balance, Jinora started falling, and landed on the one place she didn't want to land: the rail she was aiming for earlier. Her side slammed into the bar hard, and there was a 'crunch' that couldn't possibly spell good news.

"Ow, FUCK! Watch where you're going, asshole!" Jin yelled at the guy who hit her, which kind of had Jinora shocked. Normally, she wouldn't fly off the handle like that, but it just sort of... happened.

-"Jin!" Korra called out when she was clutching her side. "You okay there?"

The younger girl put a hand on her side, which didn't feel good. "No, this actually really hurts."

Korra got a worried frown on her face. "Can you take a deep breath?"

Jinora tried to inhale, but couldn't because of the pain in her side. "Not right now."

-"Come with me," the older girl said, leading her to behind the electricity shed. "You gotta take off your shirt, I need to take a look at it, make sure it's not broken." When Jinora was hesitant, Korra grew a little impatient. "My mom's a physiotherapist, and I couldn't help but pick up a thing or two, so now is not the time to be prudish."

With a sigh, Jinora gave in, and with Korra's help, managed to take off her hoodie. The tight tank top underneath it would be so much more difficult though, that they decided it would be better to just lift that so that Korra could look at the injured area. She gently ran her fingers over the bruises, and Jinora hissed in pain every time she gently pressed down on them.

-"Well, it looks like you have three cracked or bruised ribs. Good news is that they aren't broken, but it's going to hurt badly for a few days."

"Greatness," Jinora groaned. "Anything I can do about it?"

-"Yeah; go home, put ice on it, and stay off your board for the next week."

It sucked, that much was clear. But while dressing, Jinora suddenly became a lot more worried, because going home was a lot harder now: no way in hell could she climb up to her room with three busted ribs. She raked her mind for options, and it seemed like there were only two: either tell Korra the truth and ask her for help, or ask Kai. Both were undesirable, so she would have to go with the lesser of two evils here.

"I need to go talk to Kai, can you help me up?"

Korra complied, a bewildered look on her face. "Kai Fong? I believe the word you used to describe him was 'insufferable'."

Jinora sighed, which caused a flash of pain to shoot through her side again. (Note to self: stop sighing.) "He is, but right now, he's my best chance at getting back home. Should we get caught by my folks, at least he won't be a total stranger to them."

The older girl didn't look convinced. "You sure about that?"

"No, but it's my best option right now. Or least worse, if I'm honest."

-"Alright, if you say so." Korra pulled Jinora to her feet and helped her back into her hoodie, before scampering off to find Kai.

It took a while before he came over, but come he did. "You alright there?"

"Not really. Trust me when I say that I don't want to do this, but... I need your help."

He raised an unconvinced eyebrow. " _You_ need _my_ help? Boy, you must've really scraped the bottom of the barrel."

"I have. Look, I busted three ribs just now, I need to climb back up into my room, and no way in hell can I do it on my own now. Will you help me?"

He thought for a moment, before a crooked smirk appeared on his face. "Do note that I'm going to use this against you for all the time we have left in the same class."

Jinora rolled her eyes in lieu of sighing, but it had the same effect: Kai's smile only grew. "I've considered that, and I guess I don't really have a choice here," she said, which was good enough for him. They set off, on foot of course, because no way could Jinora hoist herself on a motorcycle now. After putting her stuff away in the watershed shack, they soon made it back to Jinora's house, where all the lights were already off, which was a good thing.

What wasn't a good thing, was that they didn't really have a plan, something Kai was quite happy to point out. "How do you want to go about this, what with you unable to climb anything higher than the sidewalk?" he asked on a hushed whisper.

Jinora threw him an annoyed look, which Kai pointedly ignored, but he was right; she hadn't thought this through properly. (Not that she'd ever admit that to him.) "We can use the garden furniture, should be sturdy enough to hold us. You climb into my window and lean down, I reach up from a chair, and you pull me into my room."

He didn't seem convinced. "I'm not sure that can work, not with your ribs."

"I'm a 100 pound girl, if you can't lift me, you can't lift anything. Besides, this is probably going to hurt me a lot, so you should enjoy it while you can."

-"I do enjoy seeing you in pain," Kai smirked, putting up his 'fair enough'-face. "Alright, let's do this." With surprising dexterity, he managed to haul himself up to her windowsill, and he gently opened the window before climbing inside.

As silently as she could, Jinora pushed one of the chairs against the wall, and somehow managed to stand on the seat without causing herself too much pain. This of course, was the easy part, as it was going to be the part where Kai had to hoist her into the window that was going to be the trickiest bit.

"Go," Jinora whispered, and Kai leaned down, hooking his legs behind her windowsill, making sure she wouldn't pull him over the edge. She grabbed both of his hands firmly, and used this to support her weight while she walked up the wall of the house. Fortunately, they had a brick house, giving better traction. The odd angle did mean a little bit of pressure was put on her ribs, but it was nothing she couldn't handle.

The hardest part was actually getting _over_ the windowsill, because Kai couldn't support her weight like that. "Now what?" he asked, Jinora awkwardly suspended halfway up the wall.

"Put your arms under mine, pull me up," she replied, but they had to move quickly now. Jinora wouldn't be able to support her own weight very long in this position, but luckily, she quickly felt Kai's arms wrap around her, and he easily pulled her up over the window. Of course, it hurt like hell, but because she was prepared for it, she managed to bite the pain down.

What she wasn't prepared for, or Kai for that matter, was that her foot caught on the frame of the window, making him tumble backwards, taking Jinora with him. She landed on top of him, causing another bolt of pain to course through her side. Jinora was about to swear out loud, but it died in her throat when she opened her eyes, and saw what position they were in.

Their faces were extremely close, staring directly into Kai's eyes, and she couldn't help but think that they really were beautiful. Not only that, but she now knew they were hiding pain, something that she could now finally see.

Her eyes flashed down to his lips, lips that looked so damn kissable right now. All she had to do was lean down maybe an inch or two, gently biting that bottom lip, pulling it out a little bit, taste that _oh so_ appealing hint of cigarettes... And apparently, Kai felt the same way, since he made no effort to get out of it. In fact, his eye flashed down to her lips much the same way hers did.

Had it not been for another flash of pain from her ribs, Jinora might have actually done that. As it stands though, she was mighty glad that flash had come, otherwise getting through their English project would be uncomfortable.

They had both turned beet-red as they stood up, Jinora thankful for the half-dark of the room hiding how red she really was. It stayed silent between them for a while, neither really knowing what to say that would make this situation less awkward.

-"So..." Kai eventually said, rubbing his neck. "I guess I should be going, huh?"

Jinora softly nodded, not fully trusting herself to speak just yet. He was halfway out the window when she found her voice back. "Hey..." she softly said, stopping him in his tracks. "Thanks."

A slight smile appeared on his face. "You're welcome. And let's keep what just happened between the two of us."

"Probably a good idea." After that, Kai worked his way down to the ground, and Jinora couldn't do anything else but feel stupidly giddy for the rest of the night.


	7. Hospital Run

Getting up in the morning was, if anything, even more painful than climbing back into her room with three busted ribs. As soon as Jinora was standing on her own feet again, she lost her balance because of the pain, and grabbed hold of the first solid object her hand could reach, which was her desk.

Unfortunately, it had a glass on it that she knocked off the desk, and it promptly shattered when it hit the floor.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me!" she said out loud, now completely stuck for options. She was barefoot, on a wooden floor with about three feet of glass between her and the door, and quite a bit of pain coming from her side.

-"Jinora, are you alright in there?" her mother's voice came from the other side of the door, and for once, Jinora was glad to hear it.

"No, I'm not, could you come in here?"

Pema stepped inside, seeing the mess her daughter was in, who was clutching her side and leaning on her desk for support. "Oh my God, what happened to you?"

"Fell out of bed last night and I landed on my side. This really hurts." Another lie, and this really started to get her worried; they were coming easier and more frequent as time marched on.

Her mother eyed Jinora up carefully. "Alright, stay there, I'm just going downstairs for a broom and a vacuum. Don't want you slicing your feet open on top of everything else."

"Yeah, thanks," Jinora said with a morbid chuckle. She waited patiently for Pema to come back with the necessary equipment to finish at least clearing the way for her daughter. She quickly swept the floor clean, making sure she could move around the room freely.

-"Want me to take a look at that?" the mother asked, a worried frown on her face.

Jinora shook her head. "I think it'll be fine," she said, but she couldn't finish her sentence without grimacing.

-"Uh-huh, and I'm the Easter Bunny. You can barely stand on your own two feet from the pain, so no, you won't be fine. Come on, let me help you." Together, they very gently rolled up the younger girl's shirt, and even without having a good angle, Jinora could see the bruising. It looked completely black and blue, which was pretty much the way it was feeling. "I'm taking you to the hospital, this is not good, Jinora. You go and clean yourself up as best you can, and I'll call your school that you can't come in today. Sound like a plan?"

"Sure thing, Mom." Pema turned around again, leaving her daughter to dress herself to get to the hospital.

Several grunts and internal curses later, Jinora was dressed in clothes that would be easy to take off again, should a doctor need her to do that. She quickly ate her breakfast, while her mother informed that they would be going to the hospital after dropping off Meelo and Rohan at school as well.

Climbing into their high-riding Land Rover was difficult, but not impossible, especially with some very sweet help from both her little brothers. Pema had already called into school that she wouldn't be coming in due to a medical emergency.

Her doctor was a middle-aged woman, which did comfort Jinora slightly. Even though she knew doctors tended to be professionals, the thought of having to undress in front of a man made her slightly uncomfortable. At first, both Pema and Jinora were asked to sit down. "What happened?" the doctor asked.

"Fell out of bed, and landed badly on my side," Jinora simply answered, same lie she told her mother, but she'd have to keep up the facade for now.

-"Hmm," the doctor nodded, and turned to Pema. "Mrs. Gyatso, I'd like some privacy with my patient. Would you please wait in the waiting area?"

Pema smiled. "Of course." She quietly got up, and left after which Jinora was indeed asked to undress.

The doctor let out several 'hmm's and 'uh-huh's, before looking at the young girl with a knowing smile on her face. "You didn't get this from falling out of bed," she said.

In all honesty, Jinora wasn't really surprised she found out. "No, I had a little accident while skating, but I'd rather have my mother wouldn't know about this. I was knocked off my skateboard when someone crashed into me, and slammed into a rail."

-"Well, that explains the narrow bruising. I can't see on the outside whether they are cracked or bruised, so we're going to have to make an X-ray. What I can tell you in advance is that there isn't a lot I can do about it, other than prescribe pain medication."

Jinora dutifully nodded, and after dressing herself, went outside again, where they were led to the X-ray machine. Taking the picture itself was a cinch, and the doctor took another close look at it, before a worried frown appeared on her face. "It looks like you cracked two ribs, which explains the pain you're constantly feeling. The third one is only bruised, so that should heal a lot faster. I'm going to put you on Vicodin, which is a rather serious painkiller. It can make you feel numb, so do be careful with it."

"Thanks, Doc." With the pills in their possession, they made their way back to the car, deciding it wouldn't really make sense to take Jinora to school anymore. Her classes for today were nearly over anyway, and she was ahead anyway for the ones she still had left.

On the way back home, Jinora suddenly received a text, from the person she'd least expect, if she was very honest with herself.

 **06 376 82 947:** _How bad is it?_

 **Jinora:** _Bad. Two cracked ribs and high on painkillers now._

 **06 376 82 947:** _Lucky bastard :-P_

Jinora smiled at Kai's admission, and she decided now was as good a time as any. A few quick moves over her screen, and her smile grew as she saw the confirmation her phone displayed: " **Kai Fong** added to contacts."


	8. Skeletons

Jinora hit the table with her flat hand. "Come on, you agreed to do this my way, and that includes full disclosure. As it stands, this is as good as useless, given that I'm 400 words short of the target."

-"I told you everything I'm comfortable telling you."

"Yes, but I already told you, I can't fill those 2000 words with your wasted school career. I have one week left to write it, and I still have to write that last part, read it, rewrite it, let you read it, and then rewrite it again because there are bound to be things you won't like. Now I'm pretty good with words, but I'm not _that_ good. I've stretched this thin as is."

Kai looked up, an annoyed look on his face. "How modest of you."

Jinora sighed, smacking her glasses down on the table. "I'm serious. If I were a dozen words short, I could pad it out with a few adjectives, but it doesn't work that way of you have to make the text a quarter longer. You're gonna have to give me some history, and preferably something that can make for interesting writing."

With an annoyed sigh, Kai plopped himself down in the chair in front of her. "Are you digging into this because you actually don't have anything to write about, or because know you'll be the first one to figure it all out? Fuck you, I'm not a crossword puzzle, there's no free crap if you're the first one to send in the solution."

It fell silent for a while, and Jinora knew he wasn't going to give in just like that. If she wanted to change that, she'd have to do exactly what put them at odds with each other for so many years: push his buttons. "You're hiding something, and I have a pretty good idea what. I think your foster parents are doing a bad job one way or the other, but you won't take it to the authorities for reasons that are a bit beyond me. You don't want anyone to know about it, so it has to be very bad, maybe even criminal."

Kai was pursing his lips hard, so Jinora knew she was on the right track here. "You don't want to tell me about it, because it would end up in front of Tarrlok, and he is legally bound to report suspected child abuse."

This made him look up. "What are you talking about?"

"Teachers, doctors, they are the eyes and ears for Child Services. Part of me wants to make the call myself, but the other part knows that you wouldn't be almost religiously devoted to keeping this a secret if there wasn't an underlying motivation."

Kai just stared at her with those massive green eyes, and there was a hint of both shock and fear in there. (Jinora gave herself a mental slap for thinking that they really were beautiful this up close and personal.) "You can't call, and even though I hate to admit it, but it's because you're right, there is a motivation for me to keep this quiet. So do us all a favor, and drop it."

It took a moment for the sincerity with which he said that to sink in with Jinora, but she got the hint. "Okay," she softly agreed. "I still need something though, even if it's just something I can fill the page with."

He thought again, before he slowly stood up. "What I'm about to tell you, I have never told anyone. It's what I found out about my biological mom."

Jinora perked up at this. Sure, it wasn't the current state of events, but it was the next best thing, and if what he said was true, then it would be the best compromise. "You actually know stuff about her?"

A morbid chuckle was what this got out of Kai. "The only benefit of having been in the system as long as I have: there's a paper trail, and all I had to do, was follow it. My mom was a junkie, and that she was pregnant with me didn't really matter to her. At 37 weeks, she OD'ed, and because she was pregnant, the guy that found her at least had the courtesy to call an ambulance. I was brought into this world with an emergency C-section, and was promptly put on life support for the next month. Meanwhile, my mom was forced to give me up, because she was sent to prison for attempted murder of me. I've been in the system ever since. No one wanted a child born to a heroin addict who has virtually no medical records."

"My God..." Jinora whispered, not knowing Kai had been through so much basically from birth on, and that's not counting the current events.

He simply huffed. "I could've used God on my side, but it wasn't going to happen."

Jinora was torn: she wanted to know more, but didn't think he was going to give it even if she pried, and on top of that, she wasn't sure she could handle it. Kai had been hiding large parts of his life, and hearing this, that wasn't a surprise.

-"By the way, I'm glad you brought this up, there's something I still have to do."

This had her surprised. "What do you mean?"

-"My mom got 20 years in prison, those are nearly over now. Still have to get myself a restraining order against her, 'cause I don't want that bitch within 500 feet of me."

Jinora didn't know what to say to that. It made sense on a certain level. She could have just as easily killed him when he was still in the womb, and in a way, it was a blessing for Kai that it had happened then. Had he already been born, his mother would have probably neglected him in favor of going after heroin. The other half of the picture was still missing, though. "Did you ever get to meet your father?" she asked next. She didn't really know why, but just kind of blurted it out.

But Kai didn't make a problem of it, and instead just shook his head. "Don't even know who he is. Chances are he had an alcohol-fueled one-night stand and I was the result."

"There is a chance you can find out who it is."

-"What do you mean?"

(Another mental slap for opening her big mouth. This was going to be awkward.) "Well..." Jinora hesitatingly began, unsure how to formulate it. "Not to sound condescending, but..."

-"Saying that almost always means it's condescending. Get on with it."

"You could ask for a paternity test, because if he is from that... environment, there's a good chance he has a criminal record. Those can include DNA."

He chuckled. "And do you think that if my dad is from that 'environment', I'd want to know him? He's a bastard, fucked my mom, and, by extension, fucked me." A smirk played over his lips. "I doubt you're going to quote me on that."

"Like I said, I'm good with words," Jinora smirked back.

-"How modest."

"Not my strongest trait," she smirked back. It briefly fell silent, meaning that the subject was over, and it was time to turn their attention back to the order of business. "You have everything you need to finish your half?" Kai gave an affirmative nod, and Jinora felt pleased, knowing that everything was coming together. "Good. Make sure you send it to me by Wednesday, otherwise I can't proofread it anymore. I'll make sure you have mine before then as well."

* * *

Jinora walked up to her mother's car, who was picking them up from school today. It wasn't the way she liked the most, but her parents didn't think she needed a car for herself, and today she'd be spared from having to go on the bus because her extra hour with Kai meant she was finished at the same time as Ikki.

When she made it to the curb, Pema was already waiting, and by being the first one there, the younger sister had called shotgun. With a sigh, she took her place on the back seat, and the mother started driving.

-"How'd the date with Kai go?" Ikki teased.

Jinora rolled her eyes. "It wasn't a date, you know that."

-"Oh please, every time you do this you go to Izumi's classroom, a nice remote corner of the school, no need to worry about prying eyes, you could be doing all kinds of things in there and no one would ever know."

At this comment, Jinora turned slightly red. "Shut up, Ikki. We were putting the finishing touches on our project. One final stretch, we have to hand it in next week."

-"Are you making good progress?" Pema asked, trying to keep her daughters _off_ each other's throats, at least for a while.

"Pretty decent, if he comes through with his part, we'll be good."

-"Ooh, no more excuses for kissy-kissy," Ikki teased again, turning around from the front seat, making kissing faces at Jinora, who noticed something out of the ordinary.

"When did you start wearing mascara? In fact..." The older girl took her sisters backpack, which was on the empty back seat next to her, digging through it, and quickly finding what she was after. "This is _my_ mascara! I've been looking all over the house for it this morning, and you had it all along?!"

She turned around, talking into her lap. "I was going to give it back..."

"That's not the point, you're stealing my shit again! How many times, buy your own damn make-up!"

-"Jinora!" Pema berated from the front seat.

"You're taking her side in this?!" the older girl asked incredulously, starting to feel Jin slowly taking control of her again.

They were standing at a red light, so Pema quickly turned around. "No I'm not, but that is no way to talk to your sister. That being said, Ikki, Jinora is right here, you can't just take her stuff without asking. She buys that with her own money, and you have to ask her if you can use it. If she says no, which I think she rightfully can, you're just going to have to buy your own. We give you pocket money, and you can spend that on what you want, and if you want make-up, you're going to have to buy that yourself."

Even from the back seat, Jinora could tell that her sister was firmly staring out of the window.

-"Do you understand that?" Pema demanded sternly. (Being scary as hell when she wanted to be was something Jinora had inherited from her mother, that much was certain.)

-"Yes..." Ikki muttered to the window.

-"Look at me when I'm talking to you."

Reluctantly, Ikki turned to face her mother. "Yes, I understand."

-"Good, then apologize to your sister."

She turned all the way around in her seat, looking to face Jinora, who was extra on her guard. "Sorry, I won't do it again." It wasn't the least bit sincere, but Jinora didn't care about that right now.

"You stole my blush as well, didn't you?" the older girl asked, seeing the hint of rose on Ikki's cheeks.

She didn't say anything, and instead, turned back to look out the side window.

-"Ikki?" Pema asked, her tone already indicating that she was on Jinora's side.

Jinora didn't need to wait for a verbal answer, she already knew it. "If it's broken again, you're buying me a new one this time," she snapped. The rest of the drive home was silent, only broken when Pema turned on the radio, trying to ease the awkwardness off a little bit, but it didn't work. To say it was tense would be an understatement.

* * *

Later on, after the sun had started setting, Jinora found herself reading on her bed, stuck for options. She still wasn't of climbing out of her window because of her ribs, let alone pull off some awesome moves on a skateboard. It was extra bad because now that it wasn't only Kai getting on her nerves, it was Ikki as well.

-"Jinora?" Pema softly asked, gently knocking the door. "Can we talk for moment?"

The younger girl sighed, and put down her book. She had been attempting to read, but it had been in vain. Nothing she read was sticking. "Sure."

Her mother stepped in, closing the door behind her again. "What happened between you and Ikki today?"

"You know what happened, you were there," Jinora scoffed.

-"That's not what I meant. The way you snapped at her over something this small, it's nothing like you. So if there is something going on that's making you act like that, I want to know."

Jinora sighed, and leaned back against the wall. "This isn't the first time this has happened. A few weeks back, my blush was gone, and three days later, it was magically back on my shelf, completely smashed. Same thing happened with my eyeliner, it was gone, and then it just reappeared, insides completely broken. I had to buy new both times, and you know how expensive that stuff is." This was true, at least in part. The part she was hiding was that she was frustrated over being unable to go blow off some steam as Jin.

Pema mulled it over for a moment, knowing that her eldest daughter had a point here. "She's experimenting. You were younger than her when you started wearing make-up."

Jinora scoffed again. "First of all, I was 13, she's 14. Second, when I wanted to experiment with it, I asked you if I could use yours and how to use it, and then went out to buy my own not long after. Third, I wouldn't mind if she wants to borrow some to see what looks good on her, but instead of asking me, she steals it, then takes it to school with her, which is why everything was broken when I got it back."

-"I've already talked to her about that. If she does that again, she'll be grounded, and that's an end of it." She briefly let it fall silent. "That still doesn't excuse the way you talked to her."

"Mom, I had been locked up in a room with Kai Fong for an hour, forced to make nice with him. You'd have a short fuse after that as well."

Her mother eyed her up, and Jinora knew those piercing eyes: they were better than the most expensive polygraphs. "Alright. Just make sure that what transpired today won't become the norm."

She nodded in return. "Okay, I can make that happen."


	9. Straight-A Students

Tarrlok reluctantly placed the paper on Jinora's table, she could just see it. "Excellent work, Miss Gyatso," he said, his voice dripping with hidden insincerity.

In the corner of the paper, there was a bright red circled 'A'. Jinora looked over her shoulder, glancing over to Kai, and their eyes locked. She was not a vindictive person, but seeing the defeat on Tarrlok's face was _priceless_ , and Kai agreed, judging by the massive smile lining his face.

-"Uh-huh, sure there's nothing going on between the two of you," Fen said, rolling her eyes.

Jinora gave her a playful poke in the side in retaliation. "Oh shush, you're worse than my sister." Fen didn't look the least bit convinced, so she threw down all her cards. "Come on, we just beat Tarrlok at his own game, we have plenty of reason to be smug. And chances are that this is the only time you'll hear me say this, but... I couldn't have done it without Kai."

Her best friend gave Jinora an incredulous stare. "Are you okay, or should we call a doctor?"

"I just went to see a doctor last week, and she made sure I legally can get high every four hours. Could be the drugs talking, but I think I'm okay." It had been three weeks since she busted her rib, but she had been back every week for a check-up and more Vicodin. (Benefits.)

-"I don't believe you."

"Your problem, not mine."

-"There's something going on between the two of you, and I'm going to find out what."

Jinora was about to dismiss the comment, but Tarrlok beat her to it. "Ladies, eyes up front, I want to start my class."

The rest of the hour was a sea of dreary English grammatical constructions and how to properly use them, how not to use them, etcetera, etcetera. In the end, there wasn't a single surprise to the hour, not until the bell rang. "Mr. Fong, Miss Gyatso, I'd like a word with both of you before you leave for lunch."

Kai and Jinora shared a knowing look, and walked up to his desk.

-"I've given you both an A, because your project was excellent. In depth, yet comprehensive. Now there is cause for concern here; Miss Gyatso, when I paired you two up, you outed your concerns about the majority of the workload ending up with you. Has this happened?"

Jinora had trouble not bursting out into laughter. (The nerve of this guy, he actually thought she'd rat Kai out.) "No, that hasn't happened. I did exactly what you told me to: kept him on a short leash."

-"Ha, you wish," Kai muttered under his breath, and Jinora rolled her eyes at him. "It's not too late for me to change my mind," she teased.

Tarrlok cleared his throat, drawing their attention back to him. "If you could save the lovey-dovey stuff for when you're outside of my classroom, I'd appreciate that. Now, Miss Gyatso, I'd like a word with Mr. Fong, alone."

Even though she was equal parts embarrassed and furious at his comment, Jinora kept her cool, keeping Jin in check for a change. "Sir, I assure you, he did his share of the work, I did mine. It would be unreasonable to punish him on this project for his typical work ethic."

-"That's not what this is about, though I appreciate your forthcoming. Shows character." He paused for a moment. "No, what I have to discuss with him is of a more... private nature. Would you give us the room?"

Jinora thought it to be safe now, though she wasn't entirely convinced by his sincerity. It would be best to wait outside, hear from Kai directly what kind of ploy Tarrlok would cook up this time around.

It didn't take long for Kai to come out as well. "What'd he say?" she immediately asked.

-"Turns out he's quite clever. He put together that you didn't write as elaborately about my current living situation, so that something was up there. You were telling the truth, he's obliged to report that."

A slight smile appeared on her face. "Of course I was, I'm not you."

He chuckled too. "Hey, as far as lies go, you tell more of them than I do, _Jin_. I'm just not telling you the full truth."

"Yeah, that's called lying by omission."

It briefly fell silent after this. "Listen... Thanks for sticking up for me in there," Kai said after a while.

Jinora's smile changed from slightly devious to genuine. "You've held up your end of the deal, you earned it."

-"If you say so. Take care." He wanted to walk off, but Jinora stopped him.

"Wait," she said, already half-way to regretting what she was about to say. "I know this might sound weird coming from me, but if you need someone to talk to, get the full truth off your chest... I'm a good listener. You can trust me, I can keep it a secret if you want me to."

Kai briefly mulled it over. "Thanks, but no thanks. I'm not doing it for me, but for my siblings. I appreciate the offer, but if you'd know, you'd only try to do something about it, and that won't do them any good."

Jinora stared after him as he walked off, feeling a new-found sense of respect for him.

* * *

Even though she couldn't yet get back onto her skateboard, Jinora was fit enough to climb out of the window again, so tonight was the first time in since cracking her ribs that she could go out to the park. Having dressed herself in the appropriate attire (her hoodie with the arrow, a fairly baggy pair of jeans, lenses instead of glasses), she was quickly on her way again.

At the park, everything was just as she left it, maybe a bit less busy as it hadn't just been closed for three days. There was the strum of the rap music, which, unlike anything she'd have said in the past, was kind of growing on her, the bright industrial lighting, and the sounds of skaters pulling off some nice tricks. All in all, it felt like her home away from home.

It took a bit of looking around, but Jinora eventually found Korra in the bowl, showing off to the people on the edge. "Nice moves, grandma!" she snidely commented, drawing the older girl's attention.

-"Jin!" she exclaimed, spotting Jinora on the side. Korra promptly made her way out of the bowl, pulling the younger girl into a tight hug. "It's great to see you up and about again. How are the ribs?"

Jinora shrugged. "Still a little sensitive, might be back on the board in a week or so. Anyway, all that stuff is semantics. What'd I miss here?"

They sauntered off, sitting down in the patch of grass at the edge of the park. "Well, not too much. Things have been going like they always have, police has been quiet, and no one gives a flying fuck about what they did," she said, nodding to a couple of guys having a joint. "I took your advice," she said after a brief pause.

"What do you mean?"

-"I came out to my parents last week, introduced them to my girlfriend while I was at it. They were pretty cool with it."

Jinora smiled. "That's great. When do I get to meet your girlfriend, or at least get a name out of her?"

Korra smiled back. "Her name's Asami, but she isn't really a skater."

"Neither was I, but then I started coming here."

-"Good point. I'll ask her, see what she has to say."

"Sounds like a plan." Jinora was about to ask if anything else had happened, when Kai came walking up to her, a smile on his face. Something was off about both his smile and him in general, she could immediately tell. Normally, his smile was cocky, slightly arrogant even, but this one was just stupid.

-"Hey Jin," he opened as soon as he was close enough.

This also happened to be the range at which she could smell him. "Are you high?"

-"Higher than you," he joked, before plopping down next to her. "Come on, it's nothing too bad, at least, nothing I haven't done before."

"You're standing under industrial spotlights and your pupils are the size of olives, not to mention that you smell like a hippie encampment."

He just continued on sheepishly smiling at her, making himself comfortable. "You should really relax a little bit. In fact, you need a hit," Kai offered, holding out the joint to her.

"Get that thing away from me." She slapped the joint out of his hand, and it fell somewhere in the grass.

-"Oh shit," Korra mumbled. "Kai, trouble on the horizon, get out of here."

Jinora followed Korra's gaze, seeing a uniformed cop at the entrance of the park.

-"Meh, nothing to worry about," he shrugged.

"You're high as a kite, you have everything to worry about," Jinora said, already standing up and preparing to drag him out of there. "Come on." She pulled him to his feet, dragging him around the back of the shed, just a few yards away from Korra, who stayed where she was. From here, she was just within earshot of the older girl.

-"Well, well, well, if it isn't Officer Killjoy," Korra snidely remarked.

He audibly sighed. "Knock it off, Korra. That's not what I came here to talk to you about. I hear you've started dating Asami Sato."

-"Yes, Mako, your mutual exes are dating each other. So what, we're both big girls, we can take care of ourselves."

So _this_ was the elusive Mako. Jinora had heard plenty of stories about him from Korra and Bolin, but it was nice to finally be able to put a face to the name.

-"It's just..." Mako sighed again. "I thought there may have been another chance for... _us_."

At this, Korra laughed out loud. "Are you serious? Mako, even if I didn't have a girlfriend right now, the reason we broke up is still there: you're acting like you have the Harmony Tower shoved up your ass."

-"Now you're just being unnecessarily flippant. There was something real going on between us."

-"'Was' being the operative word there. We're over, plain and simple. Now go make your rounds, and leave me the fuck alone."

This presented the two behind the shed with a real problem: if Mako would spot them here, he would definitely notice that Kai was high as a kite. A few weeks ago, Jinora would have been happy to let that happen, but now... Somehow, it just felt wrong. "Let's go," she quietly whispered, tugging on his wrist.

However, Kai remained stoically in place. "Nah, I kind of like it here."

"Come on..." she said in frustration, but he wouldn't budge. Now it was starting to be a problem, because she knew Mako was just around the corner. "Kiss me," she whispered, and true to form, Jinora regretted it the moment the words left her mouth. Jin, however, she was kind of looking forward to it.

Kai raised an eyebrow. "Making an offer I can't refuse, huh?" He cupped her cheeks and leaned forward, pressing his lips against hers - again.

This time around though, Jinora felt a little more certain about what she was doing, she was a little less passive than last time. She stood on her toes, making sure Kai wasn't the only one compensating for the height difference, something she wasn't entirely certain he could do on his own now.

Just as Kai's tongue brushed past Jinora's lips, she noticed Mako looking at them from the corner of her eye. She looked over to him, feigning annoyance. "Enjoying the show, Officer?"

Mako shook his head, looking fairly uncomfortable. "Carry on," he said, before quickly walking off into the crowd.

When Jinora turned back to face Kai, she saw that stupid grin on his face again. "Where were we?" he asked, before leaning in again, but she stopped him.

"Fuck off, I did it to save your sorry ass. You owe me big time, Fong." She stuck her hand in the pocket of his jacket, fishing out his keys. "You can have these back when you're sober."

-"What?!" He tried reaching for his keys, but his movements were slow and clumsy. "Fuck you, I'm fine."

"You are a lot of things, but you are not fine. If you get on your bike like this, you're gonna mistake an oncoming semi for the heavenly lights. Now go stick your head in the sand somewhere and talk to me again when the drugs are out of your system." Jinora walked off, joining Korra again.

Of course, they talked about nothing important before moving on to watching Korra pull off a few moves, which was probably a good thing, given that she had trouble focusing. Once again, a kiss with Kai had her slightly baffled, even if this one was nothing like the first one. This was sloppy and clumsy from his end, not to mention that he _reeked_ of weed, which didn't really help.

And yet... Somehow, it was nice. Jinora found herself zoning out, and it was probably a good thing that she wasn't on her board. It would have caused her more cracked ribs straight away. While on the subject, she also noticed how her side was starting ache a little again, given that Jinora had (wisely) decided not to take her bottle of prescription meds with her, and the last pill she had taken was wearing off.

It was time to go home, but then she suddenly remembered that she still had Kai's keys. "Listen, Korra, I'm going home. My ribs are starting to ache, and I'm tired."

The older girl eyed her up and smiled. "You've been out of it the entire time, so my best guess is that you did something with Kai again."

"Not relevant, though I have to give him these back," Jinora replied, holding out his keys.

Korra chuckled. "Sure. Saw him over there on the grass. See you later, Jin."

"Yeah, see you." When she walked up to where Kai was lying down on the grass, he shot up as soon as she came close enough.

-"Finally!" he exclaimed. "I'm starving, are you gonna give me my keys back, or are you going to torture me some more?"

Jinora scoffed. "Tempting as that might be, I'm not that cruel. Look me in the eyes." He did, and she saw that his pupils were back to normal, so she held out his keys. "There's a little hole-in-the-wall burger joint about three blocks that way," she said, gesturing in its direction. "Good food, not expensive."

Kai smiled and took back his keys. "Good night, Gyatso."

She knew it was about as close to a 'thank you' as she was going to get right now. Strangely enough though, she didn't mind as his hand brushed past her fingers just a little bit longer than they needed to be. Perhaps she should be rethinking a few things.

* * *

 _I don't know which guest is sending all those 'update soon' reviews, but those are starting to annoy me. I won't update any faster because of them, the only reason I can write this story to a degree you like is because I take my time writing chapters. They're done when I say they're done, not because you demand updates. Stop it, or I stop the story._

 _That being said, the reason I took my time for this one was because I juggled two chapters for this and one for The Callgirl, not sure which one to put where, so the next one for this story is mostly done. After that, chances are it's going to be another dry spell._


	10. Falling

"Just my luck..." Jinora muttered, resigning herself to the fact that she'd be spending quite a while here. Her mother had to take Ikki to mid-week gymnastics practice, which meant that she could normally take the bus home, but in amazing stroke of bad luck, she had misread the time.

Normally, Jinora would spend some time in the library, where she could study in peace without having any one of her siblings (Ikki being the most likely contender, and Jinora's patience with her sister was wearing thin,) before having to go catch the last bus home. Unfortunately, what she didn't know, was that today's bus driver was in something of a rush, and left five minutes early, leaving Jinora stranded.

Her mother was out with Ikki and would be until dinner, and her father would have to drive all the way across town to get from City Hall to their school which is why it was typically Pema to take Jinora and Ikki to and from school.

With a sigh, Jinora sat down on a low wall, knowing that she'd have to wait until Ikki came out of gym practice that she could call her mother for a ride home.

Just as she had taken out her books again (the library had closed for the day and the weather was nice anyway), a familiar voice drew her attention. "What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?" Kai, asked a cigarette already between his lips. With his nimble fingers, he quickly lit it, blowing out the first puff of smoke, deliberately away from Jinora.

"Well, I'm stuffed. The last bus left early, and both of my folks are busy. Looks like I'm gonna be enjoying myself here for a while."

-"Don't enjoy yourself too much," he replied with a slanted smirk.

"Shut up." He held the pack of cigarettes out to her, like he was actually offering her a smoke. "No thanks," she sarcastically said, feeling the frustration build again. Even though they had been more amicable since their English project finished, mutual respect being the driving force behind that, the hatchet wasn't so easily buried with nearly a decade of adversity between them.

-"What were you still doing here this late?"

Jinora scoffed. "Studying in the library, actually making myself useful, as opposed to _someone_." He made his typical 'fair enough'-face, which was enough to make her ask. "What about you?"

-"Detention, turns out that Unalaq wasn't impressed with my traffic-excuse." Kai took another drag of his cigarette, looking like he was stalling. Jinora let him, turning back to her homework, something she had to read. "Gyatso," he said, and she looked up, slightly curious. "I could give you a ride home."

Jinora looked up, then over to his motorcycle (she hated that thing so much,) and then back to him. (Repeat three times.) "Are you being serious here?"

-"You helped me get an A for English, and then you covered for me last week with that cop... I owe you, and I hate owing people."

"And you figure a ride on that death-trap would settle the score?"

Kai simply shrugged. "You can always wait here for your parents to come pick you up, or I can have you home in 10 minutes."

She hesitated to make another snarky remark, because his offer was appealing. At least, the results were. (Jinora wasn't a fan of the phrase 'the ends justify the means', but Jin was.) The choice was simple: get home early on a motorcycle, or wait here for her parents for God knows how long?

She was contemplating the issue for so long, that Kai got tired of waiting and climbed onto his bike, revving the engine up once. "Wait!" she yelled, making a decision that she might just come to regret. "I'll take you up on that offer." She quickly walked up to him, stuffing the last of her books back into her backpack, and he tossed his helmet at Jinora for her to wear. "What will you have?" she asked, unsure whether or not she should take it.

-"Extra motivation not to crash," he simply retorted, putting on a pair of sunglasses. "Relax, Gyatso, I know what I'm doing."

Reluctantly, Jinora put the helmet on, and sat down behind him, cautiously putting her hands on his sides. "You're going to have to hold on better than that." He threw a look over his shoulder and grabbed her hands, folding them over his stomach.

She was glad she had decided to wear her denim jacket today, that would at least be a little sturdier that a thin layer of fabric, should they fall. What's more, (and she really hated to admit this one) being pressed up against Kai like this was kind of... _nice_. It reminded her of that night in her room where they had nearly kissed, had it not been for her busted ribs.

Feeling the bike pull away, albeit more gentle than Kai would usually do, and she was glad he made her hold on a bit tighter, because this was _weird_. Actually feeling the lean of the bike without having to work for it was a little awkward at first, but a few turns in she quickly learned to look past Kai's head and anticipate the corners.

He took them over the freeway, and this was where things got interesting, because the on-ramp was preposterously short here, while the speed limit was 60 miles an hour. This meant Kai had to open up the throttle, and give it some noise.

Despite it being impossible that it was a very powerful engine (cost of fuel, insurance, and all that), the bike sped up like a bat out of hell. Jinora found herself clamping on to Kai a little tighter than she already was, mostly because he seemed to have a cavalier disregard of both the speed limit and the phrase 'keep your lane'.

Despite this, Jinora had to admit, this was _exciting_. She could feel the wind rush past her, and despite the fact that part of her was scared beyond belief, she also couldn't remember the last thing that had made her feel like this, this... alive. Not even completing that half spiral all those weeks ago came close to this.

It was over way too soon. She knew that it was a pretty straight shot from the freeway exit Kai took to her house, at least, at the speeds he was riding. It wasn't long before they pulled up right in front of her house. She got off, and handed Kai his helmet back. "Thanks." Again, his hand brushed past hers, and neither one of them seemed to mind.

-"You're welcome." Jinora was about to walk back into the house, but Kai stopped her. "Gyatso," he started, but then he started hesitating. "I've been meaning to ask you... Why'd you do it?"

"What do you mean?"

-"Why did you kiss me last week?"

Jinora smiled, having already expected this question to come sooner. "Korra told me Mako was a massive stick-in-the-mud, even compared to me. Figured public displays of affection would make him very uncomfortable."

Kai chuckled, but when he took off his sunglasses, his eyes betrayed a more serious expression. (First time for everything.) "Fair enough, but that's not what I meant. I get _why_ you kissed me, I just don't get why you bothered with it in the first place."

At this, Jinora didn't really know what to say. Part of her wanted to see him get in trouble for getting high in public, for getting on her nerves all the time, and just for his massive ego in general. But she now also knew that when he put his mind to something, he could be very diligent, hard-working, and committed. He protects the people he truly cares about, but he would never show that to the outside world. "You showed me your true colors, both during and after English. That side of you didn't deserve to be locked in a holding cell while you sobered up." The corners of her mouth tugged up slightly. "The other side of you however, that could do with a little bit of discipline."

Kai laughed as well, and for the first time since they met all those years ago, Jinora felt comfortable with him. She had let her guard down, whether she liked it or not.

-"I think I better get going," he said. "Wouldn't want to arouse suspicion."

Jinora chuckled. "Yeah, I think that would be best. See you later, Kai."

-"Later, Jin." With that, he put his helmet on, and gently rode off, making sure to keep engine noise down here in a residential area.

Much to her own surprise, she stared after him, right up until the moment that he made the corner and disappeared from view. This was when Jinora sighed and decided to go back inside. No one was home yet, so it was quiet, which was nice for a change. Normally, there was always activity somewhere in the house, mostly because of her rambunctious siblings.

Jinora used the moment of silence to her advantage. She poured herself a glass of juice, before falling flat on the couch, where the big question popped up in her head: how did she really feel about Kai?

He could still get on her nerves like no one else, that much was obvious, but unlike what she would have said a few months ago, that wasn't the full story anymore.

It wasn't just the attraction, at least, she didn't think it was. It was still there, that much was certain. Hell, if anything, it was there more so than it had ever been. The worrying thing was that it seemed to run more than skin-deep now, which had been the case for all those years.

Their last kiss popped into her mind again. Did she really mind that much, kissing him to provide a decent distraction? Hell, she hadn't even benefitted from it, it was solely to cover his ass. The kiss itself was rubbish, but the idea behind it wasn't.

Thinking back to their first kiss, that was different. True, it was annoying, he blackmailed her into it, but it sure was a good kiss, and part of her wanted to have another one just like it.

As soon as this thought entered her mind, she choked on her juice and shot up. "Oh God..." Jinora mumbled, as she realized what that meant.

She was falling for Kai.


	11. Family Weekend (Part 1)

Family dinner had been tense as of late. Normally, Ikki was the one talking the loudest, typically in a friendly discussion with Jinora, but there had been a tension rising between them since the make-up incident. To Ikki, Jinora couldn't do anything right anymore, and vice-versa, everything Ikki did vexed Jinora. It had already cost both of them a couple of nights of extra dish-duty.

Of course, Meelo and Rohan were perfectly content with that, it meant they didn't have to clean up after dinner. (Simple hierarchy in their family: Tenzin earned, Pema cooked, and the children cleaned.)

-"We've been invited by Kya and Lin to stay the weekend at their house. I hope you don't have any plans." Pema said when it fell silent (again) at the family dinner table.

Tenzin didn't seem too pleased with this. "Seriously?"

-"Yes, seriously. She's your sister, you should be getting along with her," the mother added, though not without a glance towards her two daughters.

Jinora could only roll her eyes at this. "Are you still blaming me for all this?"

-"Jinora, not at the table," her father warned. "This is dinner time, and I don't want to spend it keeping you and your sister off each other's throats."

-"But why?" Meelo perked up. "I still want to see them fight!"

Pema sighed. "Meelo, you shouldn't be encouraging others to fight. Now we are going there as a family, and I hope that this visit will help you two to reconcile," she said, throwing Jinora and Ikki stern looks.

The girls sighed. "Yes..." they groaned simultaneously. The rest of the dinner was quiet, tense, and Jinora couldn't wait to get _far_ away from that table.

That night was a disappointment altogether, because Jinora really, _really_ wanted to go skating one last time before the weekend, but unfortunately, it was raining cats and dogs. Even if she managed to sneak out unseen, no one would be crazy enough to go to the park now. With a resigned sigh, she locked herself up in her room, knowing that she'd probably miss going to the park over the weekend more than she'd like to admit to herself.

* * *

Jinora was actually kind of looking forward to school. (Imagine that: looking forward to school on a Friday.) It meant that she could put some distance between her and Ikki, though there was a downside, which became apparent at lunch.

-"Gyatso, got a minute?"

She didn't even need to look up to know that it was Kai. "Can we not do this now? I'm really not in the mood for your bullshit." (Seeing how boys will be boys, the fact that she was covering up her attraction with a thin veneer of animosity was something he remained oblivious to.)

Unfortunately, she knew that he wouldn't let himself be put off by this. "Relax, I'm not here to blackmail you again or something, just came by to give you the heads up."

At this, she perked up. "Heads up of what?"

-"Korra is taking her girlfriend with her to the park tomorrow, heard it from Bolin. You typically don't show up there in the weekends, so I figured you might want to change that for once."

(Of course, this only made her feel like kicking herself even more.) "Dammit. I can't, I'm forced to come along on family weekend. Needless to say, I'm not looking forward to being locked up in a car with my sister for two hours, and now you made that _even less_ appealing."

Kai slowly nodded. "Sucks to be you. Anyway, enjoy your little family trip," he smirked, before walking off.

Jinora's urge to deck him was growing again, but she bit it back. "Yeah, yeah, screw you too, Fong."

This was exactly the kind of news she could have done without. Not only had she been looking forward to going to the park again, meeting Korra's girlfriend was also pretty high on her list, and now she'd be unable to do either.

"Fuck my life," she sighed quietly.

* * *

Even though Jinora was fine with the greetings and small talk with Lin, she decided it was probably safest to avoid her for now. This was where her schoolbooks would come in handy, because it gave her an excuse to avoid her by saying she had to do homework. While this wasn't entirely a lie, (she had already finished it a long time ago) so she instead decided to use the time to work ahead.

It was boring and tedious, but at least it kept her occupied and safe. Unfortunately, there was someone with different ideas about that.

About an hour in, Aunt Lin walked in, carrying her typically stern expression. She took a suspicious look around, trying to find anything out of place. "You know, Kya was looking forward to seeing you again."

Jinora smiled. "Likewise, but unfortunately, I'm busy."

-"Cut the crap, Jinora. The only thing you're busy with is avoiding me."

With her best and most innocent expression, Jinora tried to feign ignorance. "Why would I be doing that?"

-"You wouldn't be, unless you had something to hide from." Lin pulled up a chair, taking a seat opposite of her niece. "Now I know it was you I saw a few weeks back at the North Point Mall. I told your mother, and she didn't believe me, unsurprisingly. I didn't have any proof, I wouldn't have believed it either if it was my daughter."

Jinora was just about ready to strike back, because the perfect plan was forming in her head. "Are you going somewhere with this?"

Lin sighed. "I am. In spite of what I do for a living, I don't want to be arresting you for trespassing or whatever else it is you do with those people. You are family, so I'm warning you here and now: stay away fom them."

"I'm a big girl, I can decide on my own who my friends should and shouldn't be."

-" _Listen_ to what I am saying. When push comes to shove, I will arrest you, and it will go on the record. I'm not going to hold back because you're family. Do you understand me?"

Jinora chuckled. "Well, don't worry, you won't have to arrest me."

Lin sighed. "I hope you're right, because your parents would be heartbroken if I do." It briefly fell silent, during which Jinora and Lin exchanged a hard look, neither one willing to back down. "Dinner is almost ready. I'm kind of expecting you to join us rather than eat a plate up here by your lonesome."

Jinora nodded. "I'll be right down."

* * *

-"I've prepared a room for you girls, it's about time you should be heading to bed," Kya announced. However, Jinora didn't really take this as being meant for her, given that she hadn't had a real bedtime in about three years.

-"That means you too, Jinora," Pema said.

This took her by surprise. "Mom, I'm 17 going on 18, don't you think bedtimes aren't really necessary anymore on Fridays?"

Her mother sighed. "You're in the guest bedroom, and you know how light a sleeper your sister is. You'd definitely wake her up if you don't go to bed for another hour."

(Oh _hell no_!) Jinora mouth literally fell open. "Are you kidding me? You're putting me in the same room as her?!"

-"'Her' has a name, you can stand to use it. Now I don't care about this little feud between the two of you, you've been living in the same house for over 14 years, you can spend one night in the same bed together. It's not like you've never done that before."

"That's cute when you're 7 and 4, not when you're 17 and 14. Come on, aren't there any other beds I can sleep in?"

Pema sighed, and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Jinora Gyatso, you are going to get along with your sister for the night, or so help me God, I will make you. Neither of you will like what happens then, so you'd both better make at least a little effort to make this weekend work. Do you hear me?"

The tone her mother struck was clear: no room for discussion or negotiation. Contrary to popular belief, Jinora's ability to be scary as hell when she wanted to be came from her caring and loving mother, not her relatively stern father, like the few people who knew about it thought. "Yes," she begrudgingly answered.

-"That means 'now', Jinora. To bed with you."

With a sigh, Jinora stood up and made for the designated bedroom. In it, Ikki was already unpacking. "I take it Dad told you what's going to happen?" The younger girl vaguely nodded, so Jinora just took it he did. "Look, Mom made it very clear that we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Now I don't know about you, but I prefer easy."

Ikki sighed. "What would the hard way look like?"

"Let's not find out." Jinora turned around, finally facing her sister. "Truce?"

A vague smile played over Ikki's lips. "Sure."

Jinora smiled too, because she knew this had just become a lot easier. "You want the bathroom first? I'll change, then we switch."

-"Sounds like a plan." With this, Ikki took off for the bathroom, and Jinora set to work undressing herself for the night.

Fifteen minutes later, bother girls were properly dressed and cleaned for the night, lying in bed next to each other like they had done so many times in the past. Jinora couldn't help but feel a certain intimacy the darkness gave them, and her wonderment about whether or not Ikki felt the same thing was quickly answered.

-"Jin?"

"Hmm?"

-"Why do we have to fight?"

Jinora couldn't help a morbid chuckle and this, and had to hold back Jin from saying 'it's what sisters do'. "I don't know. Guess we're just getting a little on each other's nerves lately."

-"Shouldn't we try to stop it?"

The older girl sighed. "Yeah. Maybe we should."

-"Extend the truce 'till after we get home?"

Jinora rolled over, seeing the moonlight glistening in her sister's grey eyes. This was probably the closest they had been in weeks, both physically and emotionally. "I would like that. Sleep tight, Ikki."

-"Sleep tight."

Unfortunately, neither of them knew that the night would turn things around in the most unexpected way.

* * *

 _Alright, it's official, I suck. I've taken this long for a short chapter that I don't think is very good or very worth your time, and to top it all off, I've ended it on a cliffhanger. Feel free to hate me. I'm moving some chess pieces around for now, making sure everything is ready for the next chapter, which is going to turn things upside down, and that requires preparation. I hope you enjoyed at least a little bit of this. Peace out!_


	12. Family Weekend (Part 2)

Jinora woke up to a strange sensation. She could open her eyes without scorching her retinas, which meant it was at least still partially dark outside, so it wasn't the light. There also weren't any loud noises nearby, so it wasn't that either.

Trying to move proved difficult, which presented the first clue, and ultimately was what prompted Jinora to open her eyes again.

Laid out half on top of her, was her little sister, still fast asleep. This actually made Jinora smile a little because Ikki had always been a cuddler, ever since she was a little girl. Never had she let anything get in the way of hugging people and snuggling up to others on the couch, and she sure wasn't going to let sleep be the first one. It was actually kind of sweet.

That still left the question of why she woke up, though. Shaking off the haze of sleep, she actually focused, and felt a strange sticky sensation on her legs.

Then she realized it. And for all that is holy, Jinora hoped she was wrong. She threw off the blanket, sitting up in bed and taking her phone off the nightstand to use it as a flashlight.

This revealed good news and bad news. The good news was that she was wrong about her realization. (One of few times Jinora was glad about being wrong.)

The bad news was that there was a big bloodstain on her left calf, which had her worried. What the hell could have happened in bed that would make her bleed like that? She pulled her pant leg up to her knee, and using the flashlight of her phone again, she quickly determined that she hadn't been the one bleeding. So what...

Good. Fucking. God. It was like she was hit by a freight train, about two thirds of its cargo consisting of disgust, and the other third consisting of unadulterated rage. "IKKIIIIII!" Jinora thundered, knowing full well that would probably wake everyone in the house.

-"What?" she sleepily said, dazed from being woken up do roughly.

"Have you never heard of a damn tampon?! Christ, how old are you?!" Jinora yelled.

It was at about this point that Ikki started to pull out of her daze and take a closer look at the sheets. "Oh... I was kind of hoping that wouldn't happen until we got back..."

At this, the older girl was completely amazed. "You knew? You fucking _knew_ it was coming, and you didn't bother with, oh, I don't know, SOMETHING TO STOP YOU FROM BLEEDING EVERYWHERE?!"

Right around now, Tenzin, Pema, Kya, and Lin burst into the room, not knowing what caused their rather loud argument. "What is going on here?" their father demanded.

"Ikki can't count to 28, and found it necessary to bleed _on me_!" Jinora yelled, showing the bloodstain on her pajamas.

-"Ikki?" Tenzin asked his youngest daughter, a worried frown on his face.

-"Period came," she replied with a small voice.

"There are four women in this house you could have asked for a damn tampax! Why didn't you?!"

Pema pinched the bridge of her nose. "Jinora, calm down, no need for rude language. Ikki had an accident, you can both clean yourselves up now, and we won't even remember it happened tomorrow."

Jinora sighed. "Mom, forget it, this little trip just isn't working. So far, I've been trapped in a car for two hours, bored out of my mind over homework, accused of bullshit I didn't do, forced to sleep in a bed barely big enough for two, and now I've been used as a maxi-pad. Screw it, I'm going home."

-"You're not going anywhere," her father said.

"There are three cars in the driveway, and I'm taking one." This was true, though undesirable, given how it was their own Discovery (which was so big that it kind of scared Jinora) and the cars of Kya and Lin.

-"Jinora, stop this ridiculous notion, you are staying here, and you're coming home with us on Sunday. That is an end of it."

"Watch me!"

-" _Enough_!" Kya silenced everyone. "I'll take her home."

Tenzin sighed. "Kya, I don't need you to tell me how to raise my children, and I definitely don't need you to enable her."

-"And I don't want a family in my house that does nothing but bicker or ignore each other all day long," she countered. "Jinora is old enough to stay at home alone for one day, and it's obvious she isn't very happy to be here."

"Thank you, Aunt Kya," Jinora said, relieved to know that she had backup here.

Kya looked at her, and her expression wasn't exactly its normal cheery self. "We'll talk in the car," she said in a tone that didn't spell much good. "Get cleaned up and pack your stuff, we leave in half an hour."

-"You are not taking my daughter anywhere," Tenzin tried to protest again, but this time, help came from a more unexpected corner.

-"Tenzin, let them go," Pema said. "I'm with Kya here."

Jinora wasn't about to give her mother enough time to change her mind, so she was already digging through her bag, pulling out a towel and clean underwear so that she could take a shower. Her parents continued arguing though.

-"You can't possibly agree with this," her father said to her mother, the look on his face being somewhere between frightened awe and disbelief.

-"We're not going to solve anything by yelling at each other here. It's best that we let our tempers cool, and when we get back home as well, we are going to have a _very_ long conversation," Pema countered, turning to Jinora as she said that last part, right as she was trying to get to the shower.

"Can I take a shower now? I'd like to clean myself up from _someone else's_ period," she asked, as her parents were blocking the door.

Pema sighed. "You are not out of the woods yet, young lady." She stepped aside, and Jinora knew her mother wasn't bluffing.

Still, it's a result, even if it meant that she side-stepped a pothole only to fall off a bridge.

* * *

The first half hour or so of the journey back was quiet. Jinora had taken the wheel of Kya's car, but because it was only five in the morning, there was virtually no other traffic on the road. Driving like this was relaxing after all the stress the early morning had brought with it, it was kind of meditative.

-"Jinora, what is going on between you and Ikki?" Kya asked, breaking the fragile silence between them.

Jinora sighed. "Call it sibling rivalry."

-"That's pretty thin. The way you yelled at her suggests something deeper going on, and I'm worried about it. It's entirely possible the bubble is going to burst sooner or later, and then it's going to cause more damage than it did today."

"Yeah, probably. Still, Ikki just keeps on finding new ways to get on my nerves, and I just feel like she's doing it deliberately. And she stole my stuff, and it feels like she's trying to be me. The other day, I caught her going through my closet, seeing if she could fit in my clothes. The week before that, it was my make up, and before that, it were my favorite books."

-"Don't you think that all points to a single source?"

Jinora looked over to her aunt, not quite clear about what she meant. "What would that be?"

-"Ikki looks up to you, Jinora. Whether she knows it or not, she's trying to be more like you."

This made sense. Jinora was doing well for someone of her age, and she did have a sneaking suspicion Ikki had more potential than she was living up to. It would be a waste though for Ikki to try and be like Jinora, given how wildly different their interests were. Jinora was a bookworm, Ikki was an outdoor-type. She was quicker to act instead of thinking, which is exactly why Jinora thought they clashed so often right now. She was becoming more of an outdoor-type, while Ikki was forced to stay in the books more by her school. "I suppose," she said.

-"You are being pretty hard on your sister, Jinora. Especially this morning, which was not something she was deliberately trying to do."

"Maybe not, but she didn't do anything to prevent it either. I'm not her biological clock, she should be capable of keeping track of things like that herself." Jinora sighed. "Look, this is a good thing. I think that when we've put some distance between us, we'll be better able to work it out when we've cooled down." After this, Jinora turned her attention back to the road, as it kind of was the final thing to say. Kya may have been sitting on more, but she decided to shelve it.

Because of the non-existent traffic, Jinora could make good progress. Kya had turned on the radio, and somehow the songs that came on all seemed to directly relate to the situation at hand, as they always do. These included Dance Little Sister, and how could it possible not, We Are Family. The urge to switch the radio station had been immense.

At around seven, Jinora steered the car onto her own driveway, and she sat in the car for a while with her aunt. "Thanks for taking me home," she quietly said. She really was grateful for it, even if the ride itself had been tense. She was home now, no Ikki to make her life miserable, just the entire house to herself.

-"Well, I don't think you should be too pleased about it. The fact that it's necessary isn't good, Jinora."

Jinora sighed. "Maybe not, but for now, it's what I need." She stepped out of the car, and walked around to take her bag out of the trunk. Kya had stepped out as well, and before walking inside, Jinora hesitated. "Do you want to come in for some breakfast? I could make something simple."

Ky smiled. "Nah, I should be heading back." She paused for a moment. "Come here, you," she said, pulling her niece in for a tight hug. This was something Jinora had always loved about her aunt; she always seemed to know who needed a hug and when.

She smiled, and relaxed into her aunt's embrace. "Thanks, Aunt Kya. I needed this."

-"I know you did, sweetheart."

They finally split, and Kya gave her another smile. "Will you think about what I said, and about taking it slightly easier on Ikki?"

Jinora nodded. "Yeah, I will."

-"Alright, then I should be off." With this, her aunt walked back to her car, and started her long journey home.

Jinora went inside, where the first thing she decided to do was catch up on some overdue sleep. It wasn't much, and since no one was there to care anyway, she just fell down on her bed after taking off her pants and shoes, set on sleeping in today.

It was at about nine o'clock before she woke up again, which was plenty late enough. Jinora went down to make breakfast, and thought about what would happen next. She was probably going to get hell for this tomorrow, so she should at least enjoy herself while she could.

Item one on that list was to go to the park tonight and meet Korra's girlfriend.

With a sigh, she took out her phone, because she suddenly wasn't so sure anymore after what Kai had said. She was the one pressing Korra to bring her girlfriend, so it would be a bit weird for Korra to bring her on the one night Jinora couldn't make it. Jinora wouldn't put it beyond her to change the thing entirely.

(This was another one of those things she was probably going to regret.) Due to a lack of options, she still didn't have Korra's number, she dialed for the one person she did have: Kai.

-"Hello?" he groggily answered.

"Kai? It's Jinora."

He didn't immediately answer, but eventually did so with a groan. "Gyatso, it's early. Why the hell are you calling me out of my sleep?"

"Not that early, but that's beside the point. Listen, I wanted to know if the plans for tonight had changed."

-"No, they haven't, but I thought you were on family weekend?"

Jinora sighed. "I was, but then I had a huge fight with my sister this morning, my aunt took me home, and long story short, I'm here, rest of my family is still there."

Kai slowly started laughing, louder and louder. "Holy shit, Gyatso, that is ice-fucking-cold! You ditched your family to go at it alone?" His continued laughter was slowly starting to piss her off.

"Glad you find my family tearing itself apart amusing," she said with a sarcastic scowl.

-"It _is_ pretty funny from where I'm sitting," Kai chuckled. "Anyway, Korra said they'd be there at around eight, so I guess I'll see you there."

"Guess so. Thanks for the update."

He chuckled again. "No problem."

He hung up, and Jinora put her phone down, lying back in bed.

It wasn't until she realized how fast her heart was beating that she internally swore again.

* * *

 _Right people, I'll confess, there was more to this chapter originally, but it got out of control. That part already made it past the 3000 word mark, and at well over 2000, this is already one of the bigger chapters. Guess there'll be a Part 3 to this as well. Good news is that I already have ~1000 words for that. Take care, people!_


	13. Family Weekend (Part 3)

**Warning: mild drug abuse ahead.**

* * *

Jinora had spent the day reasonably productive, having done the last of her homework, she tried to win some goodwill from her mother in advance by vacuuming the house and cleaning the kitchen.

At about seven, right before she was going to put on dinner, (read: slide a frozen pizza into the oven,) the doorbell went.

Surprised to get a visitor ar dinnertime, she held off on the pizza, opened the door, and to her utter surprise, saw Kai standing there. "Kai? Wha-what are you doing here?"

-"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," he chuckled. "Can I...?" he asked, gesturing inside.

Jinora sighed. "Sure," she said, still a little dazed that he just showed up here. She stepped aside, letting him into the house.

-"Nice digs," he commented, taking an appreciative look around.

"But seriously, what are you doing here?" Jinora asked, more surprised than actually hostile.

Kai turned around, that same handsome smile on his face again. (Dammit.) "Figured you could use the company."

Jinora raised a single eyebrow, not the least bit convinced by this excuse. "So naturally, your first instinct is to invite yourself over for dinner."

He chuckled. "No, I came to invite you out with me. You still a vegetarian?"

"No, we switched to flexitarian - wait, that still doesn't explain _why_ you came here. I've known you for nearly ten years now, and I'm not stupid. You wouldn't do this if you didn't have something to gain from it."

-"Busted..." Kai laughed. "Alright, I confess. You have been on painkillers over the past month, and since I've known _you_ for nearly ten years now, I know that you are nothing if not precise. Prescriptions are always too much, which means you have some left."

Jinora just stared at him, unsure whether to be in awe at his reasoning, (because he was right,) or to yell him out of the house. "You're unbelievable," she ultimately settled for. "You come here and invite me out for dinner just so you can get my prescription painkillers to get _high_?!"

He thought for a moment, before giving her a nod. "Yeah, pretty much. Figured dinner with you is a small price to pay for hospital-strength painkillers."

She sighed. "What am I supposed to say to that?"

-"How about: 'Yes, here you go, where are you taking me?' That would be a good place to start." He fell silent for a moment. "Look, when I first found out that you were going to the park, you told me to help you keep up the guise. If you still have the stick up your ass there, what's the point? This would be a good way to do that. Relax for a bit, something you could definitely do with right now."

Jinora sighed, because once again, he was right. Sure, the anger of the whole incident of this morning had faded, but it hadn't done anything to help with how tense she was. She had tried meditating earlier, but was forced to give up when all the 'what if'-scenarios kept rampaging through her head.

"Am I correct in saying that you win either way? If I say no, it means I give up a dinner in exchange for my leftovers, meaning I'm a bitch, and if I say yes, you get your drugs."

Kai smiled. "Exactly."

A coy smile played over her lips. "I'm impressed, Fong. Where were you planning to go?"

Twenty minutes later, Kai and Jinora were sitting across from each other at the same burger joint she had pointed out to him after she saved his ass from Mako. (And what a great ass it was.) She had only been here once before, but it still was good food for not too much money. They had both ordered, and were now waiting for their food, both of them sipping on Diet Cokes with _way_ too much ice in them.

What's more, Jinora had Kai's helmet on the seat next to her and the bottle of Vicodin in the pocket of her hoodie. She had quickly changed, even though she was already wearing her comfortable baggy pants, she was now wearing lenses instead of her glasses, and her hoodie was also kind of a requirement.

-"So what happened this morning?" Kai asked when he finally stopped playing with his sunglasses and put them back into his backpack.

"What do you care?"

-"Well, you seemed pretty adamant yesterday about being forced on family weekend, and then a single fight is enough to make you go all the way back home."

Jinora took a deep breath, as she had sort of expected this question. "Yeah, call it sister troubles. Things have been tense between us lately and it hit a boiling point this morning." She sighed. "Look, can we not talk about this now? I've already had my fill for today and I'm scheduled for an encore tomorrow."

He nodded understandingly. "Fine." It fell silent again. "So... Cats or dogs?"

Even though the question seemed kind of out of the blue, Jinora did smile. "Dogs. We had one for years. Oogi, a Great Pyrenee. And with 'great', I do mean _great_. He was big enough for me and my siblings to ride when we were little."

Kai chuckled. "Sounds like a fun dog. But given how you're talking in the past tense, I take it he's gone?"

Jinora sighed again. "Yeah, we had to put him down two years ago. We talked about getting another one, but we couldn't decide on whether we wanted another one that's as big as he was or more like a lap dog." She briefly paused. "Anyway, what's yours?"

-"Secret option number three: neither." She threw him a confused look, so he elaborated. "We've never had one of those. We live in a small apartment, so a cat would be bored, no one wants to walk a dog three times a day, and what's left are either hamsters or the one thing we can keep alive: a goldfish."

She laughed at this. "You have a fish?"

-"Yep. Named it Nemo, obviously, and me and my five siblings take care of it. Sort of. We occasionally forget whose turn it is to feed it, but it's still alive!"

She laughed again, and realized just how _easy_ this was. Jinora leaned back in her booth, letting her head rest against the high back. "Are you noticing something?"

-"You mean that we're talking without trying to kill or seriously injure the other?"

She nodded. "Exactly. If you'd have told me about this three months ago, I'd have declared you howling mad."

Kai locked eyes with her, and damn, was that a pair of beautiful green eyes. "A lot can change in three months," he said, and for once, there wasn't an undertone of sarcasm in his voice.

"I guess it can." Jinora could feel the connection forming between them, so thick that it was almost tangible. Suddenly, she realized that not only was she attracted to him, there was a very real chance that he was so to her as well, given how they were sitting here.

Just as the atmosphere between them started to settle, a server arrived with their food. "Great timing," Jinora muttered.

-"Here you go, one fried chicken burger, and one Deluxe," the server said, though he didn't seem the least bit invested in his work. "Enjoy your meal." If Jinora was to hazard a guess, his demeanor was somewhere between 'please make it quick and painless' and 'when the hell is my shift gonna end'.

Kai chuckled when he walked off. "Boy, bet you ten bucks he's the life of the party."

Jinora laughed at his remark. "Yeah, I guess he would be." She dug into her Deluxe burger (though that was kind of overrating it, the main difference between it and a normal one was pickles,) silently berating herself from agreeing on going to a hamburger joint. It was probably one of the least elegant foods to eat, so a good impression was out of the question. On the other hand, she wasn't exactly dressed to display her 'feminine figure', or even to suggest that she had any kind of manners at all.

They ate for a while in companionable silence, and it was Kai to break the streak. "Since when did you give up being a vegetarian? The way I recall it, you were always pretty precise in it."

Jinora sighed. "Well, I was, and I kind of sill am, but my youngest brother, Rohan, he forced our hand. Turns out he's allergic to most nuts. Meanwhile, Meelo is lactose-intolerant. Working a vegetarian diet around either one is difficult enough, but both at the same time is nearly impossible. To make sure we didn't starve them, we switched to meat about three times a week. That's the way humans are supposed to eat anyway," she added with a chuckle.

He chuckled. "So you sacrifice yourself and your beliefs for them, and then use that to order a deluxe burger here?"

"Reaping the benefits," she smirked back. "And besides, you're not really in a position to lecture me on questionable intake."

-"Speaking of which..." Kai smirked.

Jinora raised an eyebrow. "I'm not giving you anything while you still have to ride. First we go, then you can have these."

He thought for a moment, before giving her a 'fair enough'-nod. "Fine. But I'm leaving my bike here anyway, the park is only three blocks away. What do you say, I'll pay and we're out of here?"

She looked surprised. "Uhh, if you insist, I guess."

Kai chuckled. "Believe me, Gyatso, I do." He stood up, and Jinora was amazed to see a gentleman emerge from someone with a pierced eyebrow and a bad-boy leather jacket.

* * *

After backtracking a single block to fetch Jinora's gear, they quickly made their way to the park. Bolin and Opal were already there, surprised to see them showing up together. "So you two made amends?"

"Something like that."

-"Yep," Kai confirmed. "Anyway, you owe me, Jin. I'll come to collect later." With this he walked off, seeing a couple of his own buddies at the other end of the park.

-"What was that about?" Opal asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Nothing," Jinora quickly brushed it off. "Nothing important, anyway. Still, there is a mostly empty bowl in front of me, a board in my hand, and what the hell am I still doing here talking to you?" she finished with a chuckle, before dropping into the bowl, relishing the feeling of being back on her board.

It wasn't even like she was trying to accomplish anything tonight, just being on the move again while performing a few simple tricks was enough to satisfy her for now.

It went on like that for a while, Bolin tried to impress Opal, (kind of worked, judging by her expression,) but Jinora constantly kept one eye on the entrances.

At about eight fifteen, they finally showed up, hand in hand, Korra with a board under her arm. "Holy shit..." Opal softly commented at the sight of Korra's girlfriend. "I think I just became bisexual..."

-"That's... kind of hot," Bolin commented after a short moment of contemplation.

"Don't think that's how it works," Jinora said. Still, she wasn't above admitting that Opal may have been on to something, because Korra's girlfriend was beautiful.

-"Guys, this is Asami Sato," Korra introduced her, and she gave a small wave. "Asami, this is Opal, Jin, and you already know Bolin."

Jinora smiled. "Hi there," she cheerfully opened. "So you're the one who's been giving Korra massive lady boners?"

Korra and Asami both went bright red, with the latter brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. "Ehh... I guess?" she hesitantly said.

This made Jinora chuckle. "Relax, I'm joking. Still, someone needs to look after Korra, and if it's not me, it should be you. Come on." She guided them over to the patch of grass on the edge of the park, and sat down with Korra and Asami, trying to get as much information out of her as possible while embarrassing Korra where possible. This backfired a few times, but on the whole, it was the older girl who was red most of the time.

During their conversation, Jinora learned that Asami was open to pretty much everything, which was already evident from her wardrobe. To fit in, probably on Korra's suggestion, she was wearing a simple black hoodie with a few red logos on it, but the expensive blouse and skinny jeans underneath suggested a more refined taste for clothes than she was letting on here.

Outside of the occasional joke at Korra's expense, Jinora couldn't help but notice that talking to Asami was easy, and that neither she nor Korra had any trouble keeping their PDA's to a minimum, and even then it barely went beyond holding hands.

Everything would have gone off without a hitch, had Kai not suddenly shown up again. "Hey Jin, Korra. And you must be Asami," he said, holding ut his hand. It should be noted that even when he wasn't right next to her, Jinora could smell the cigarettes on him. "I'm Kai," he continued while Asami shook his hand, before plonking down next to Jinora. "And Jin here owes me something."

"Oh come on," she sighed. "Do you want the whole park to hear you?"

-"What are you talking about?" Korra asked.

-"Jin here made a deal with me, namely that we would use the painkillers she had left from her cracked ribs. You know, for fun."

"I don't recall there being a 'we' in it, Kai," Jinora said.

He scoffed. "You're no fun. I thought it would be a good way to break the ice with Asami, quick way to learn what she's really made of without having to resort to Truth or Dare or maybe Never Have I Ever."

Jinora took the bottle out of her pocket, quickly counting the pills through the translucent bottle. There were eight of them.

-"Sounds good to me," Korra nodded.

-"I'm in," Asami replied, making Jinora look up in surprise.

"Seriously?"

-"My dad is real harsh on drugs, so I can't come home smelling like a Jamaican reggae club. Painkillers are pretty safe and plenty of fun."

Jinora sighed again. "Not what I expected of you," she said, and passed the bottle around, first to Kai. He took out two pills, as did Korra and Asami.

-"Well, one for the money, two for the show," he said, before swallowing the pills. Once again, Jinora looked at him in surprise. She had never taken more than one at a time, and that already had its effects. "Hey, I know these things, one is enough to still let you function, two is for good fun, but three is a bit overkill," Kai defended himself.

Korra and Asami both chuckled. "He's right," Korra said.

Jinora chuckled. "Well, I guess that's a good point," she agreed. Hell, it wasn't like she was taking them now to kill pain, it was for fun, and it's not like they were a ton of fun one at a time.

Just like the others, she swallowed them both at the same time, and it turned out that Kai was right; the effects were much, much stronger now. She felt woozy all of a sudden, and her limbs became heavy.

Meanwhile, Kai was still clear-minded enough to put some music up on his phone, and naturally, it was Stolen Dance. (The lyric 'stoned in paradise' Jinora didn't believe to be a coincidence.)

"Whoa..." she muttered, feeling herself numb from the pills. Jinora let herself fall back after a minute, staring up at the sky. "Hey, does anyone else feel like they can see the stars spinning?"

Korra chuckled. "Looks like two is more than enough for you," she snidely commented, though her voice was definitely slurring.

"Hmmm..." Jinora contently hummed. Even like this, she could feel that someone was looking at her, and off to her right, she saw Kai staring at her.

-"Is it weird that I can't feel my face?" he asked no one in particular.

"You can't?" Jinora perked up.

-"Don't think I can." He willed himself to his feet, and held his hand out to Jinora. "Come on, stand up for a moment."

Not really knowing what he was getting at, she took his hand and let him pull her up. "What's happening?"

-"Hit me."

"What?" She was completely baffled.

Kai smiled. "You know you always wanted to, and now's your chance. Do it,"

(Jinora didn't like to admit that he was kind of right, there had been plenty of moments where she wanted to slap him.) "I'm not kissing you again," she already defended herself.

-"Wait, 'again'?!" Asami called out in surprise, voice slurring as well.

Jinora turned to face her again. "It's a long story."

He thought for a moment, making a 'fair enough'-face again. "Okay, but then you have to do the next thing I want you to."

"Within reason."

-"Of course. Now give me your best shot, Jinny," Kai egged her on.

"You might regret that," Jinora warned him, smiles already playing over both of their faces.

-"Ha! As if..." He never got to finish that sentence, because Jinora had already struck out. She made it such a hard slap with a flat hand that it literally decked him.

Both girls behind her broke out into a gush of laughter while Jinora first felt a surge of guilt wash over her and covered her mouth with her hands. She had never slapped anyone before like that, and kind of to her own surprise, realized that slapping Kai didn't make her feel that good at the moment.

It wasn't until she heard him laughing that she felt her own guilt subside. "That was _awesome_!" Kai laughed. He rolled onto his back again with a huge smile. "I really can't feel my face anymore."

"I'm sorry," Jinora laughed, because seeing him like this was pretty damn funny. "Totally worth it though."

-"Totally," Kai smirked back.

Jinora plopped back down beside him, comfortably leaning on the grass. "So what's next?"

-"Well," Kai said, and handed her his backpack. "This."

She gave him a curious look, but then zipped it open. Inside, she found all kinds of spray paint cans. "You are kidding me," Jinora said, looking up at him in disbelief.

He smiled. "What? It's not dirty, and it's definitely no more illegal than trespassing in the North Point Mall. And I let you slap me, you owe me one."

"You sly bastard," Jinora chuckled.

Korra laughed as well. "You let him push you into a corner there, Jinny. He's right."

"Aren't you supposed to be on my side?"

-"Consider that payback for embarrassing me tonight," she said with a smirk just as sly as Kai's.

Jinora sighed. "I hate all of you."

-"I know you do," Kai piped up, and pulled her to her feet again. "Besides, I can draw, you can write. Already have the perfect spot in mind."

Against her better judgment, (and let's face it, that wasn't very good right now,) she did follow him out of the park.

* * *

Having stowed their gear away in the watershed shack again, Kai led them to part of town that Jinora hadn't expected him to: the Mall again. She knew it was a little risky, but then again, there were plenty of blind spots on the outside where security couldn't see them. The walk was long enough to clear their heads, getting most of the Vicodin out of their system again.

"What are you even planning on doing here?"

-"Well, You're the one who's new to this, so why don't you tell me? Gimme a good phrase, and we'll do it."

Jinora thought for a moment, trying to remember her favorite literary phrases. Anything biblical was discarded, because while tempting, it also seemed a little sacrilegious to spray paint that onto the side of a mall. "How about this: 'Not all those who wander are lost.'?"

-"Where's that from?"

She smiled. "Lord of the Rings, but it didn't make the movie. Shame really, it's one of my favorite passages."

Kai shrugged. "Well, it's a pretty good one. What do you say, you do the second half on the bottom, I do the first half on the top?"

"Sure." They set to work, and it didn't take long for Jinora to notice something: Kai was very quick, yet very precise. He managed to make his part look very good, neat and tidy, though of course not in the font of the movie titlecard, but that was a bit much to ask. Jinora's part on the other hand looked sloppy, definitely the work of an amateur.

She was just about to put the finishing touches on 'lost' when they were interrupted.

-"Hey, what are you doing there?!" someone yelled.

"Oh, shit." This was pretty much the moment Jinora knew they were screwed, because the lazy security Kai had insisted on the complex had wasn't so lazy after all. "Scram!" She threw the paint can away, sprinting along with Kai in the opposite direction, chased by the security guard.

As luck would have it, he wasn't exactly fit for combat, weighing in at an approximate 250 pounds if Jinora's slightly askew vision was anything to go by. They ducked into an alley that was very dark, but she knew that they would properly have to outrun him, because her orange hoodie would be visible with even the faintest glimmer of moonlight, of which there was plenty tonight.

Kai however, didn't have this problem. He pulled her around another corner, pushing her into a niche in the wall. He stood right in front of her himself, bodies pressed tightly together. Because of his black leather jacket and dark jeans, he was practically invisible to the casual eye in their dark little niche.

Even though her heart was pounding in her ears, Jinora couldn't help but appreciate how Kai felt being pressed up against her like he was now. He was warm, and with his strong arms keeping her own pressed against his chest to make sure they were hidden from view, she could even feel some of the definition of his muscles through his T-shirt.

They could hear the guard huffing and puffing as he stumbled by, clearly hindered by his significant bodyweight.

Jinora looked up slightly, and couldn't help but smile, the same smile that was on Kai's lips. He put a finger on them, signaling her to stay still.

-"Fuck!" they clearly heard the guard swear, as he now knew that they had gotten away from him. They waited for him to come back, but the footsteps became more distant, so Kai cautiously leaned out of their little niche, checking to see if the coast was clear.

When he turned back though, everything changed. They were tantalizingly close together. Jinora could feel his heavy breath streaking over her face, but she didn't mind one bit. Her hands slowly and automatically slipped up his neck, before slowing down when they hit the underside of his strong jaw. All that really remained was the question of who would make the first move, because it was fairly obvious they both wanted this.

Jinora's eyes flicked down to Kai's lips and vice versa. There was no stopping it now.

Ultimately, it was Kai who made the first move. He leaned down, moving to catch Jinora's lips with his own, and it was _glorious_.

For two people who couldn't stand each other for the better part of a decade, they had shared a surprising amount of kisses, it had to be said.

With that in mind, this was by far their best one, even with Jinora's limited experience. With no more reluctance from her side, she fully let Kai explore her mouth, giving him the reigns. He had more experience in this area, and it showed, though Jinora was not afraid to let him.

She could feel his arms slide around her back, pulling the two of them closer together, as close as they could be now.

And that damn hint of cigarettes again. Even though Jinora had never smoked in her life, she loved the taste of it on him, it was her own Forbidden Fruit. It wasn't strong, it wasn't dominating, but it was unmistakable.

Their noses brushed together, switched sides a few times, and couldn't help but feel... _nice_.

Eventually, Jinora was the one to break away, resting her forehead against Kai's. "Whoa..." she breathed.

Kai chuckled. "You can say that again," he breathed, taken aback just as much as she was. "Still think it was a bad idea?"

Jinora laughed as well, though not too loud. "Bad idea, good result." Even though she would have liked to stay like this for a bit longer, she knew they couldn't. "Wanna get out of here?"

-"Good idea," he agreed, and pulled back from their little niche.

The entire walk back, Jinora didn't let go of his hand.

* * *

 _So there it is. They finally did the thing._

 _The part about the Lord of the Rings is true, to my knowledge. Arwen does recite the second verse of the poem it came from, but that line is in the first half._


	14. Now What?

Jinora was in bed, wide awake. Even though today had been fairly long, tiring, and it was late, no way in hell was she able to sleep now.

Kai had been a true gentleman and walked her home after their little outing, and holding his hand all the way back did give her a sense of security.

Of course, now it was a matter of trying to get over the kiss, which wouldn't be easy. The main question that was spooking through Jinora's head was: now what? They hadn't really discussed it, but it was obvious, at least to her, that they couldn't just go back to the way things were. One benefit they had this time around was that no one knew about it, and that they'd get to keep it a secret, at least for now.

That was the good part, but the obvious downside of that was that they couldn't ask anyone for advice either. At least, for now. Chances were that if this actually was something, Korra would be able to see right through her, and maybe Fen would as well. Especially the latter would be bad, because Fen did have a the tendency to be a bit of a yenta. She could keep some secrets, but something as juicy as this, no way.

Korra would be the lesser problem, at least for Jinora. But even if she did catch wind of them, it wouldn't matter, because the amount of people from their school there was small and the amount of people that knew Jin was actually Jinora was limited to Kai.

And yet, it had her worried. If they really were going to be an item, she'd want to keep it on the down low for now.

Which pointed to another good question, and perhaps the most pressing one of all: were they going to be an item? Kai had a reputation for being a ladykiller, but then again, Jinora had seen a lot of his reputation being proved wrong just by sheer power of will from her end, her determination to get to the bottom of him. She wasn't there yet, but it was a start. He definitely deserved the benefit of the doubt with this one.

Jinora rolled over to check her alarmclock. It read 3:40 in the morning, so she rolled back with a sigh. "Fucking hell, Fong," she muttered. (Again.)

* * *

Of course, Sunday wasn't much better. Most questions she'd had during the night were still roaming wild in her head, and they weren't the kind she wanted to ask him over the phone.

But there was a bigger threat looming in the distance: her parents coming home. That there were going to be consequences for what she did was kind of inevitable, so Jinora used her time to prepare for the inevitable. Cushion the blow, so to speak.

She had removed her SIM-card from her phone and stowed it away separately in her room from her phone, along with one of her father's old phones, so that she could cheat her way out of having hers taken. Now was _not_ a good time for that punishment.

There was an extra bag of marshmallows (Jinora's guilty pleasure) in the pantry, should they be necessary, as well as an extra pint of ice cream in the freezer. Low-fat, can't go for the whole stuff straight away, plus, bigger chance of her mother not noticing it.

Of course, there wasn't a lot she could do about her laptop, but then again, she could make the argument that she needed it for school, which was true. For the rest, well, banning her from books wasn't really an option, and her parents didn't know about the skating anyway, so that wouldn't be a problem just yet.

It went roughly as Jinora had expected. At about four, the rest of her family came home again, neither one of her parents looking very pleased.

She silently followed them into the living room, while her father instructed Meelo, Rohan, and Ikki to take their stuff to their rooms.

"Can we do this with Ikki as well? I kind of want to talk to her first," Jinora offered up.

Her parents exchanged a surprised look, but then also nodded to each other. The four of them moved into the living room, where Jinora turned to her little sister. "Look, I just wanted to start by apologizing to you. I was legitimately pissed off, but me flying off the handle like that wasn't what you deserved. I'm sorry."

Ikki eyed her up suspiciously. "Sure."

"Can we try the truce again?"

-"Yeah," she said, not the least bit convinced. "Can I go?"

Jinora raised her hands in defeat, looking towards her parents.

-"Yes," Tenzin said. "We need to have words with Jinora anyway."

The younger girl quietly made for her room, leaving the three of them alone. "That was unexpected," he opened.

"I meant it," Jinora said. "I don't want the bad blood between us anymore. It's tiring, and I'm sick of it. But if she's not willing to take me seriously, there's not a lot I can do about it."

-"I'll talk to your sister," Pema said. "And even though I think this is a good first step, you know perfectly well that what you said and did was way out of line. You're grounded for the next two weeks, Jinora. Straight home after school, no library."

Jinora sighed, because that was kind of what she was expecting. "I suppose I had that coming."

-"Yes you did," Tenzin commented. "We'll leave the internet on, but you'll hand over your phone for the first week. If we think you're making progress, you'll get it back."

"That's not fair!" Jinora protested, even though she was prepared for this. (Keeping up appearances and all.) "It's _my_ phone!"

-"Yes, that _we_ pay for," her father deadpanned. This was true, the bill still had her mother's name over it. "Like I said, you behave this week, we'll give it back to you come Sunday." He held up his hand, signalling Jinora to hand it over.

"Fine," she sighed, and took her phone out of her back pocket to turn it off. "I'll time 168 hours from now," she said while placing it in her father's hand. "Anything else?"

Her parents shared a knowing look. "No, not for now," Tenzin said. "But the main thing is that we want you to make an effort to make nice with your sister again. No more of this tension between you two."

"I just tried that," Jinora said. "I apologized, and you saw just as much as I that Ikki didn't care. The ball is in her park, and if she decides to throw it back, I'll catch it properly."

Pema smiled. "That's what we want to hear."

* * *

Even though it was in her bag, Jinora noticed her phone buzz. It was Monday, so the first two periods, she wasn't in the same classes as Kai. Not surprisingly, the message contained only two words.

 **Kai:** _Slept well?_

 **Jinora:** _Sort of. We need to talk_

 **Kai:** _Auditorium?_

 **Jinora:** _First break_

With that settled, sigh turned back to her work, though it was still difficult to concentrate.

-"You've put on your 'I love Kai'-face again," Fen teased on a hushed whisper.

"Oh, drop it," Jinora replied. "We've had this discussion before."

-"So why is he involved? I saw the name over the conversation."

(DAMN.) "Can't I get a little bit of privacy anymore?"

-"Not until I know what I want to."

Now Jinora had been backed into a corner. Fortunately, she wasn't too bad at improvising. "Fine. He came by my house, took me out for a romantic dinner, after which we had a steaming make-out session, and we're about to have another one."

Fen just rolled her eyes. "You really aren't taking me seriously on this one, aren't you?"

"I want to, but since you're not listening to what I'm saying, I can't. Now will you believe me when I say that for that English project, we buried the hatchet, and it stayed buried. I consider that progress."

At this, Fen just sighed. "Yeah, sounds reasonable, if you weren't so obviously hiding something."

Jinora sighed. "Look, I dug up stuff that I wasn't supposed to. Put a light version of it in the project, and promised him to keep it a secret. And it's also not something to play around with, this is serious, so I figure, I should at least help out on the sidelines. That's the truth."

Fen smiled. "That's more like it."

In the break, Jinora quickly and quietly made her way over to the auditorium, where Kai was already waiting for her. An involuntary smile crept over her face when she saw him. "Hey."

-"Hi," he smirked back. It was fairly obvious that whatever happened on in that alley was still swimming through his mind too. "So... now what?" he asked.

Jinora sighed, because that was the question she had been asking herself all weekend long. "I don't know. Haven't been able to come up with anything clever."

Kai slowly nodded. "Alright, let me ask you this: what do you want it to be?"

"I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. The kiss, the walk home, even the dinner. Part of me can't wait for more."

-"And the other part?"

Jinora chuckled. "Thinks it's a terrible idea."

He took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. "I suppose those parts wouldn't happen to line up with where you draw the line between Jin and Jinora, would they?" She didn't say anything, because that was actually right on the money. He took her silence as confirmation. "Gyatso, I stand by what I said these past seven years. You do drive me insane, and you have a massive stick up your ass. But at the park, you're this carefree girl, loving what she does, not giving a damn about anyone. That's someone I'd like to get to know better."

She took a moment to think about what he said. "Kind of ironic, seeing how I'd like to get to know the part of you hidden beneath the tough guy-shell. You do care deep inside, and that's someone I can spend more time with."

-"I remove the shell, you remove the stick. Sounds like a fair deal to me."

Jinora chuckled, and leaned in to peck him on the lips. "Fine. Deal." She couldn't help but chuckle at the thought. "This is crazy. Us together, I mean."

Kai laughed as well. "Yeah, I suppose. I should also stop calling you Gyatso, seems a bit weird now."

"I'd appreciate that," Jinora said. Kai clasped her hand in his own, and started pulling her towards the door, but she resisted. "Kai, wait."

-"What is it?"

"Well..." She sighed, because there was no easy way to bring this. "Do you think we can keep 'us' quiet for a bit? Just until we figured out ourselves what we can make of it. Fen already suspects, and I really don't want to deal with the fallout of my parents going haywire when they find out as well. Nothing too public for now."

Kai looked a little disappointed, but nodded. "Sure. But let's try and not let that get in the way too much, okay?"

"Naturally."

-"So what do you say? Meet up after school?"

Jinora internally swore. "Can't. I've been grounded by my parents for yelling at my sister. Maybe tonight, at the park?"

-"You're on."

She took a quick look around, just to be sure, and saw that it was entirely quiet. "Give me one more kiss and we're on our way."


	15. Stargazing

Jinora was kind of bummed out, because even though it had been a week, Kai and her had yet to have their first real date. It was mostly her own fault, partly because she didn't want anyone to find out, so they couldn't really do much at school or the park, and partly because she was grounded. The best she could hope for was a few quick kisses after school, outside, and away from prying eyes.

The park made it somewhat bearable, and luckily enough, she hadn't been caught with her father's old phone yet. This would be a trick to remember. Still, it had given her some quality time with her father, practice her baguazhang a little more. He was adamant that if she kept going like this, she might be up for her black belt soon. More good news came with the day of the week; it was Sunday, and she'd finally get her own phone back.

Sure enough, while doing some mindless surfing on the internet (texting at home was risky right now) her mother knocked on the door, and Jinora called her in.

-"I gotta say, Jinora, I'm surprised. So now it's time for my end of the deal." She pulled the phone out of her pocket, handing it back to her daughter.

"Finally!" she said, taking it again. "Thanks, Mom."

Pema eyed her up. "You handled it surprisingly well, being without your phone for the week. I would have thought you were going to put up more of a fight for it."

Jinora shrugged, and realized she might just be able to solve this without flat-out lying to her mother. Even though that did become more frequent as of late, it didn't mean she enjoyed doing that. "Well, would it have helped if I were constantly complaining and moaning about it?"

-"No, it would not."

"Then there's your answer," the younger girl replied, a little bit smug. She was halfway turning back to her laptop when Pema spoke up again.

-"There is one other thing; your sister."

Jinora sighed. "What do you want me to say? I tried apologizing, and she responds by spending the week avoiding me. Barely seen her in school and when I see her here at home, our communication is limited to the absolute bare necessary. Aunt Kya already talked to me about it."

Pema shook her head. "There's a reason for that, Jinora. She's afraid of you."

This took her by surprise. "Afraid? Why's that?"

-"Because of the way you yelled at her. You might not realize it, and she might not even realize it herself, but it's all there. Ikki doesn't want to be around you because she doesn't dare to."

It had her completely flabbergasted. She knew it was bad, but _this_ bad, Jinora had no idea. "Look, Mom, I don't want that. You know I'd never hurt her. We might not get along right now, but I don't want to knock her lights out or something."

-"I know that, but Ikki isn't so sure. You're practically a master in martial arts, she's a gymnast. You're going to have to figure something out there. At the end of the day, you are still the oldest and wisest one, so that is on you."

Jinora nodded. "I'll try."

Pema gave her a small smile. "Good. Now there is one more thing: you're father and I have been talking, and we realized that you may have been on to something. You're turning 18 in two weeks, so maybe you are old enough to have a bit more responsibility. If we go on another one of those weekends, you can decide if you want to come. There are limits as long as you live here, but we are willing to give you a little bit more freedom in that."

Now this was a surprise, but a pleasant one for a change. One top of that, it was _really_ good timing, considering what she was starting with Kai. "Are you serious?" Jinora asked with her mouth hanging open.

-"I am," Pema replied with a smile. "Of course, you can't skip them all, but one or two, we'll try to be more understanding."

Jinora stood up and pulled her mother into a hug. "Thanks, Mom. I really appreciate that."

* * *

Rather conversely, Jinora broke her mother's trust again by sneaking out the very next day. It wasn't hard, just as easy as it was any other day of the week. Strangely enough, Kai had asked her to meet at the watershed shack for undisclosed reasons, but she had no reasons to distrust him.

One thing that did kind of had her puzzled was that he told her to wear a sturdy and warm jacket. It wasn't _that_ cold out tonight, her typical hoodie was enough to keep warm, especially if she was on her skateboard.

All was explained however, when Kai pulled up on his motorcycle. He took his helmet off, quickly giving her a kiss. "Hey Jin," he said, his typical smirk lining his face. "Wanna go for a ride?"

"Uhh... Sure?"

-"Good! Means I didn't bring this thing for nothing." Kai took an extra helmet out from under a net over the passenger seat and held it out to her, which she took with a smile.

"You have something planned, don't you?"

He smiled again. "Yes, I do. Don't worry, it's perfectly safe, we just can't really do it on foot."

Jinora doubted for a moment, but conceded anyway. Alright, but nothing too extreme, okay?"

-"I promise it's not."

She put the helmet on and climbed on the seat behind him, after which he slowly took off. Suddenly his idea of wearing an extra layer turned out to be a good one, because the night air at 60 miles an hour was quite chilly. Even in her denim jacket, which was the 'sturdiest' thing she owned, the cold air seeped through.

Good news was that this gave her an excuse to press herself up against Kai's back extra firm, maximizing the contact between them. Her arms were securely wrapped around his waist, and that was her entire safety belt. Of course, he was a little more cautious with her on the back, but they were still only on a motorcycle with no more protection than the clothes they were wearing.

But that didn't really matter, because Kai knew what he was doing, and the roads were pretty empty. This allowed him to throttle up a little more, and there were few times Jinora could recall from her relatively uneventful life that felt this _exciting_. He took them somewhere outside the city, judging by the direction they were heading and the mountains that were building.

After about half an hour, they were thoroughly clear of the city, and Kai pulled over from the mountain road he had taken. They ended up in a field in the middle of nowhere, and it had Jinora curious. "Okay, why did you bring me here?" she asked once she had taken off her helmet again. "I hope it's not to murder me and dump my body in a quiet spot."

Kai chuckled. "Tempting as that would be, I actually brought you here for that," he said.

At first, she couldn't really figure it out, but then she saw that he was pointing straight up. Once she looked there, she could see the stars in the sky, clear as day. Hell, she could see the entire Milky Way, stretching out above her. "Whoa..." she said, unable to think of anything more intelligent.

-"Come on," Kai said, taking her hand. He pulled her a little further onto the field, where he lay down in the tall grass. Jinora followed his example, lying down right beside him. As soon as she was, she took his hand again.

"It's... _amazing_. How... How'd you think of this?"

Kai simply smiled. "There's no moon tonight and no clouds. Wanted to be out of the city, so this was a pretty good place. Just wanted to go stargazing with you like you've never done before."

"I'll say..." she admitted. "Such a shame there's so much pollution in the city that we can't see this at night."

They lay in silence for a while, before Jinora spoke up. "Can you see Venus from here?"

-"I think so, give me a moment." Kai looked thoughtfully for a while, before pointing up. "I think it's that one."

Of course, this wasn't very helpful for Jinora. "Which one?"

Kai chuckled and pulled her in a little closer so she could follow his outstretched arm. "That one," he said, pointing to a particularly bright dot. Of course, Jinora knew that Venus was bright, but she had no way of knowing whether or not he was right. It could just be that he was doing this to lay a little closer to her, because her head was buried in the crook of his neck.

"Are you sure?"

-"Nope."

At this, they both broke out laughing. It was childish, but it still was pretty funny. Jinora looked up at the sky again, where she saw a shooting star. "Did you see that?!" she asked him excitedly.

-"I did, did you make a wish as well?"

Jinora rolled over, her face lining up with Kai's. "I'm just wondering if you made the same one I did."

He leaned in slightly, capturing her lips with his own. The sweet little kiss quickly grew into a more passionate one, with Jinora eagerly opening up to grant Kai access. His arm snaked under her back, pulling her a little closer to him.

Right now, the angle was kind of awkward, both of them being on their sides. This changed when Kai rolled back, pulling Jinora on top of him.

It was a perfect moment. Kai's body pressed up to hers, his heat spreading through her like wildfire, (though on second thought, that could be something she didn't really want to think about just yet,) the well-practiced lips moving against her own, that damn hint of cigarettes that wouldn't go away no matter what he did... There was simply no way Jinora could imagine this moment becoming any better than it was right now.

When they finally broke apart for air, Kai's trademark slanted grin came back. "I think I did," he smirked.

* * *

 _I know it's fluffy, but I felt like writing it. D'oh well._


	16. Officially a Big Girl

Today was probably going to suck.

Jinora was used to birthdays (she had to sit through six each year, plus those of other relatives outside of her direct family), but she really wasn't feeling like her own today. Uncle Bumi and Aunt Kya coming by was manageable, but she'd also have to spend the entire day making nice with Ikki, which wasn't exactly ideal right now. On top of that, her aunt and uncle from her mother's side (and their kids, which was even worse) promised to make it one _bad_ day.

Honestly, she'd prefer to spend her entire day toiling away on bone-dry calculus and chemistry than do this.

The only upside so far was that her mother had agreed to bake a pie herself, and if there was one thing Pema could do well, it was bake pies.

It was a delicious apple pie, and she was currently sitting in the living room with all the company, making small talk over a cup of tea.

-"So, Jinora, when are you finally going to get yourself a boyfriend?" her uncle Toku (mother's side) asked her, not knowing what else to talk about.

She inwardly sighed, having always hated that question. Now though, it was extra poignant, given that she had to lie to get herself out of it. "When I'm good and ready. I dunno, I guess the right guy just hasn't come along yet." Seeing how all the company Jinora was expecting was already there, she was surprised to hear the doorbell. (Thank God for that.) "I got it!" she yelled, and jumped up before anyone else got the chance.

Good thing too, as it turned out, because it was Kai. "What the hell are you doing here?!" she asked on a hushed whisper. Before Jinora really realized what she was doing, she was dragging him out back, and pushed him against the blind wall at the side of the garage, out of sight from the living room.

-"This is becoming a habit for you, isn't it?" he asked with his trademark slanted grin on his face.

A smile appeared on Jinora's face as well. "Guess so. But in all seriousness, why are you here?"

-"Korra and a few others have organized a little something for your birthday, so I wanted to ask you to come to the park with me."

She thought for a moment. "I have my entire family here, I can't just bail on them."

Kai chuckled, brushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "You won't have to, it's not until tonight at nine."

Jinora leaned in a little closer, playing with the string of his hoodie. "That makes it very appealing now, wouldn't you say? I can do that."

He took a deep breath. "There is one thing you should know in advance: Korra has managed to get hold of a few bottles of booze, and I've heard rumors of bets seeing how drunk they can get you."

"Really? I didn't think Korra would be in on that kind of stuff."

-"Not Korra, mostly guys like Bolin and Tahno. Look, I just want to make sure you don't do anything you might regret. Where do you want to set the limit?"

Jinora thought for a moment. "Two or three glasses? I dunno, I've never done it. As long as I can still walk in a straight line, I'm fine."

Kai chuckled. "Two it is." When she shot him a quizzical look, he quickly elaborated. "You're hundred and five pounds and never drank alcohol before. You have _no_ tolerance."

She nodded. "Fair enough. Thanks, Kai. But now it's time for you to answer me one thing..." she seductively said, twirling the string of his hoodie again.

A sly smile crept over his face. "And what would that be?"

"Why would you come all the way out here, when we both have perfectly working phones?" she seductively whispered, knowing full well why, given their current position.

-"Can't do this over the phone..." he replied, pressing his lips against hers, gently coaxing into a more passionate kiss.

When they finally split, a massive grin broke over Jinora's face. "No, I suppose you can't." She pressed another quick kiss on his lips. "You should go, before someone comes looking for us."

Kai smiled. "Sure thing. See you tonight." With that, he was on his way back to his bike, signaling her that he parked around the corner again, just like he did when he dropped her off.

* * *

The rest of her birthday went roughly like the first half: good food, terrible company. Jinora spent half of her time avoiding her cousins, staying closer to her aunt and the other half helping her mother prepare dinner. Eating with eight ungrateful little brats (not counting Ikki, Meelo, and Rohan) is almost undoable, even when there are three pairs of parents present.

After what felt like forever, most of the family finally left. This was also Jinora's cue to slip into her favorite hoodie, and make for the front door. "Bye Mom, bye Dad!" she yelled, and was nearly out of the door and on her way when Tenzin stopped her.

-"Where are you going this late?" he asked. Jinora briefly considered acting like she didn't hear him, but that wouldn't do her a lot of good.

"Fen asked me if I wanted to go with her and a few others, get a drink in town. It is my birthday, after all."

He raised an eyebrow. "'A drink', as in..."

Jinora rolled her eyes, and part of her wished that Kai hadn't told her about the alcohol. That way, she wouldn't have to lie even more than this already forced her to. "Dad, I'm going out with Fen. She's even younger than I am, how do you expect her to get any alcohol?"

-"Jinora, you have many abilities, and craftiness is _definitely_ one of them. Just because you're 18, does not mean you're allowed to go berserk. I expect you to be responsible here."

"When have I not been responsible? I'm not about to do something really stupid, I trust the people I'm going out with." That was actually (mostly) true. While she knew Kai could get up to a little bit of mischief, he wasn't inherently bad. Same went for Korra, who occasionally could play loose with the rules, but only so long as no one suffered from it.

Tenzin slowly nodded. "Fair enough. What time are you going to be home?"

"Midnight?" she optimistically tried.

-" _Eleven_. At latest."

Jinora sighed. "Worth a shot."

-"No, not really," Kya popped up out of nowhere. She was gonna stay the night because Lin had to go home early. "Come on, Tenzin, she's 18. Don't you think she's old enough to stay out a little later than that?"

-"Mom and Dad never let us stay out later than that," he countered.

Kya pinched the bridge of her nose. "That was 35 years ago. Times change, and I'm sure Jinora can look after herself. You've been training her since she was four." She gave her niece a quick wink.

-"She's right, Tenzin," Pema joined the fray.

Annoyed, her father turned around. "Shouldn't you be on my side?"

Pema smiled. "Well, Jinora is my daughter, I can be on her side every now and again too. Midnight."

Before Tenzin could protest any more, Jinora was halfway out the door. "Thanks, Mom, thanks, Aunt Kya!" she waved behind her.

-"Be careful, sweetie!"

* * *

Jinora was actually a little nervous, because she had no idea what to expect at the park. Rolling in on her skateboard went the same it always went, into the light, into the rap music that she was actually starting to enjoy _and_ recognize. It was Eminem with When I'm Gone. A year ago, Jinora wouldn't have thought she'd have that talent.

She'd already spotted Kai's motorcycle at the entrance of the park, so he was definitely there. It also didn't take very long to spot Korra, who promptly got a big grin on her face. "Bo! Cue the music!"

It instantly changed to the chorus of We Are the Champions, which did make Jinora smile.

The older girl walked up to her, and pulled her in for a hug. "Happy birthday, Jin. I guess you owe Kai another 'thank you'."

"I guess I do," Jinora chuckled. Unbeknownst to Korra of course, he already had that coming.

-"Now, on to the main event of the evening!" The older girl walked over to the edge of the park, and Jinora looked over to Kai, who gave her a subtle nod. As it turns out, Bolin and Opal joined them too, as did a few others. She suspected these were the people who betted on how drunk she could get.

In Korra's backpack, there was a bottle of vodka, and she quickly poured Jinora a glass. "Now, Jinny, since you are 18, you are officially a big girl now, and there is only one way to properly celebrate this: by finally putting your liver to work." She handed the shotglass over to Jinora, but also pulled her in closer. "Hey, if you don't want to do it, you don't have to."

"Meh, you're kind of forcing my hand here, Kor," Jinora smirked, and sniffed the glass. It smelled disgusting, but she threw it back in one go, not thinking about it too much. "Motherf..." she started, but never got to finish it as she started coughing from the burning sensation in her throat. "Fucking hell, that is awful," she remarked, though Jinora wasn't able to suppress Jin from chuckling as she said that. After all, the sensation of (technically) breaking the law and feeling good about it was a big part of _why_ Jin was brought to life in the first place.

A big smile appeared on Korra's face as well. "Gotta hand it to you, kid: I'm impressed."

"Thank you," Jinora mocked. "Now, I'd say it's time for a few moves." She instantly made this work by getting back on her board, making for the halfpipe. A few minutes later though, she had to get out again because of the buzz of the alcohol. Kai was right, she had no tolerance for it. Her coordination just wasn't what it normally was, but she'd just have to deal with that for now.

-"Jin," Kai beckoned her softly, making sure no one else heard him. "Got a sec?"

"Sure." She followed him to behind their trusty old electricity shed, which had of course started rumors. Jinora had half a mind already set to at least telling people about their relationship here at the park.

He looked a tad nervous. "You know, I'd be a pretty lousy boyfriend if I didn't get you anything for your birthday."

"Kai, you didn't have to," she immediately objected.

-"I _wanted_ to. Anyway, I figured, what you really need is a new board, because that one is worn down to the thread," he said, nodding to Jinora's skateboard. It was kind of true, she'd got Korra's old one to begin with and the numerous grinds she'd pulled with it herself had scraped most of the underside off. "So I got you one that suits you."

Turns out, he prepared for this, as he just leaned down to pick up a board that was leaning against the wall of the shed. "I didn't wrap it, hope that's okay."

Jinora turned the board over, seeing that it was a grey arrow on a yellow background, perfect for her. It made a big smile appear on her face. "It's perfect," she said, and pulled him in for a kiss. It felt right. "Come on," she continued, linking hands with her new board under her arm.

Kai seemed strangely reluctant to this. "I thought you said you didn't want people to know about us yet?"

"I did..." She hesitated for a moment. "But it feels right to me now. At least we can tell the people here, I say we keep it under wraps elsewhere for a little longer."

-"Fair enough."

They walked out of their hiding spot and sought out Korra, Opal, and Bolin, who were all chilling on the patch of grass to the side of the bowl. Korra's eyes were immediately drawn to their linked hands, and she smiled. "So the rumors are true!" she smirked.

Jinora chuckled. "Yeah, have been for the past month or so. Started that night you brought Asami here."

-"Ah. Vicodin-induced relationship, huh?"

"Finished the bottle that night," Jinora smirked. "Couldn't have done it that way even if we wanted to."

Kai promptly wrapped an arm around her shoulder. "Besides, we haven't needed any. She hasn't been driving me insane to the point of migraines yet."

"Likewise," Jinora deadpanned.

-"Well, I think you two would make an adorable couple," Opal nodded.

And that really was that. Jinora broke in her new board which everyone agreed fitted her perfectly, she had her second shot of vodka when their entire group had one, and Kai walked her home. For the first time, Jinora felt slightly bad leaving her gear in the watershed shack, but she didn't really have a choice.

Just on the corner from her house, they stopped. "Hope you enjoyed this part of your birthday more than the other half," Kai smirked.

"That's not a very high bar to clear." Jinora pulled him in a little closer. "I guess this is it for now, huh?"

-"Yeah," Kai nodded. He pulled out his phone to check for the time. "You still have three minutes left..."

Smiling, she wrapped her arms around his neck, and pulled him in for what would be considered a pretty lousy kiss, before breaking away. "Leave you wanting more," she winked.

Kai started laughing in response. "You are a merciless tease, you know that?"

"I do. Goodnight, Kai!"

* * *

 _Its's been a very,_ ** _very_** _long time, and I do apologize for that. August, to be precise. In my defense, an idea for another story popped up in my head for Kainora, and the counter for that currently sits at a comfortable 15.000 words. As you can tell, I've been spending a lot of time writing that, but inspiration for it has been slowing down lately. You'll see it at some point, but when that exactly is, I don't know just yet._

 _As for this story, well, the next chapter I have planned already has about 1.500 words, so that's coming along nicely. I've figured out that it's not going to have as much filler as I thought it would have, so chances are there are also going to be a few leaps in the timeline, making sure the juicy stuff actually happens. You'll just have to wait and see. If you're still reading this now, you rock. Take care, everyone._


	17. Second Base

-"Jinora, your father and I have been thinking, and we wanted to ask you something," Pema said after Ikki, Meelo and Rohan had gone to bed.

This of course drew her attention. "Oh? What's that?"

-"Tomorrow, we have to go to City Hall for a ceremony, and we wanted to ask you if you could watch your brothers and sister for the night."

(Sweet.) Of course, she couldn't show this, so instead she put up a more neutral demeanor. "Sure. What's the pay?"

-"Getting to call the shots for the night," her father piped up. "It's your own family, we're not paying you to watch them. We pay most of your expenses anyway."

Jinora chuckled, mostly because it was true. "Yeah, it was a longshot. Still, can't blame me for trying."

Her parents both chuckled, at least relieving the tension a little bit. It had been better, but still not brilliant. Ikki and Jinora weren't like they used to be, and worryingly enough, Jinora thought the root cause of that was fear.

She didn't want Ikki to be afraid of her, that just wasn't right. Sure, she had been pretty harsh and blown up big, but then again she did have at least some reason to do so in the first place, so it wasn't unreasonable. "What about Ikki?"

-"What about her?" Pema replied. "You know the drill, her bedtime is at nine thirty, as long as she does her homework before that, she's free to do whatever she wants. We won't leave until after dinner, so I expect you to be able to take care of that _fairly_."

Jinora sighed. "Alright, I can do that, as long as she plays ball."

-"I'll talk to Ikki to ensure that, but you are the older sibling, so I do expect you to be the wisest."

"Yeah, fair enough." Still. This practically came giftwrapped for her.

* * *

One night later, Jinora and Kai were lying on top of each other, making themselves very comfortable on Jinora's sofa. She'd been given full authority, and had used this to be nice and strict of the bedtime for her siblings.

This of course had been in service of the former. Kai had snuck into the house very quietly, as she knew they'd have at least an hour and a half, and there was just something exciting about doing this in a place where they would be in big trouble if discovered. That was exactly the reason to do it: the risk was fun.

They had basically spent the past forty-five minutes making out, and neither one was even remotely close to being tired of it.

-"You know you're really cute like this," Kai said, a smirk on his face when they paused for a moment to give themselves a chance to catch their breath.

"And what would that be like?" she replied, raising an eyebrow.

-"Well," he started, a thoughtful finger on his chin, "your hair down and slightly messy, hoodie and comfortable pants, and of course the fact that you're straddling me."

Jinora smiled and pressed a chaste kiss on his lips. "Let's make the most of that then while we have the opportunity, shall we?" She reached down, discarding her hoodie, pressing herself closer to him. This was also when a wave of insecurity hit her, because she'd forgotten that the simple black t-shirt was the same one she'd worn earlier today was very form-fitting.

It was the ultimate tool for bringing out just how skinny she really was.

Kai immediately picked up on this. "What's wrong?"

She felt guilty for spoiling the moment. "Nah, never mind, it's stupid."

-"You wouldn't be worried about it if it really was something stupid." He sat up, putting Jinora in his lap, his arms wrapped around her lower back. "Come on, you know you can talk to me, right?"

Jinora sighed. "You're right. It's just that... I dunno, I'm feeling slightly exposed, you know? I mean, I'm not exactly what you'd call 'voluptuous'."

At first, Kai just stared at her in disbelief, but then started laughing. " _That's_ what you're worried about? That I'll think your boobs are too small?"

She nodded. "Put bluntly, yes."

He chuckled again. "Babe, I'm gonna let you in on a little public secret: men love all boobs, regardless of size. Well, except maybe sagging or fake, but yours are neither. The only way I'd be disappointed is if you stuff your bra."

Jinora smiled too. "Well, not to worry, I don't." She briefly paused. "You really mean that?"

He pressed a chaste kiss on her lips. "I really do. And for the record, every man who says he doesn't is either gay or a fucking liar."

She laughed with him, and they fell back onto the couch, Jinora once again on top. "By the way, did you just call me 'babe'?"

-"Figure like yours is well-deserving of the title," he smirked.

This only served to make her laugh harder. "Hmm, smooth," she smirked back, once again pressing her lips firmly against his. It wasn't long before she completely lost herself in their kiss again, Kai's gentle grip on the back of her neck, the hint of tobacco in his taste, the perfect amount of pressure from his lips, everything about the kiss was right.

And yet, it just wasn't enough. Jinora wanted something more from him, even if she wasn't entirely sure yet what. It wasn't sex what she wanted, at least, she didn't think so. The thought had crossed her mind a few times, but it was always quickly overpowered by waves of doubt. This doubt was partially in her own body, and partially in her age. She was eighteen, sure, and she had even heard that girls in her class had done it long before they reached that age, but that wasn't for her. She was strictly convinced that she would do it _if_ and _when_ she was ready, and those would be decided on her own terms.

It definitely wasn't something _that_ big she wanted, but a small gesture to show that she did fully trust Kai, and that she wanted to be close to him.

And then she realized what she needed to do, what would put them closer together.

Jinora took the hand that was resting on the small of her back, and guided it over the side of her body, slowly but deliberately. He broke away from kissing her, looking at her in surprise, but he didn't say anything. Perhaps he wanted to be closer as well. Judging by the way his breathing was hitching, it seemed like he was almost as nervous about this as she was.

She guided his hand up to her chest and let him very gently cup her breast, which he did. Her wordless permission didn't do anything to make him less cautious.

It wasn't until Jinora leaned back down and kissed him again that he actually gained a little bit of confidence, and actually very gently started kneading. The way her kisses became more passionate made Kai more confident as well, more assertive.

Truth be told, it did feel _really good_. His thumb brushed over her nipple, something Jinora could feel even through two layers of fabric, and it made her moan softly into his mouth. That the bra she was wearing offered virtually no support was not very important, because it felt good.

Unfortunately, they were cut short when Kai suddenly broke away and turned his head. "Hear that?" he whispered.

"What?"

-"Someone on the stairs," he said, getting up quickly.

"Kitchen, now," Jinora said, pushing him in the right direction. Not a moment too soon, because the door to the hallway opened, revealing Rohan in the opening. She let out a sigh of relief. "What are you doing up, sweetie? I put you to bed three hours ago."

-"Woke up and now I can't sleep," he said, rubbing his eye.

Jinora smiled, shaking her head. "Alright," she said, crouching down in front of him. How about this: you go back to bed, I make you some warm milk, and bring that to you?"

-"Okay," he nodded and turned around, heading back upstairs.

She made her way to the kitchen, where Kai was already preparing her a glass of milk. "Two boys pining after you in one night. If you keep going like this, you'll be pretty popular by morning," he smirked.

Jinora playfully nudged him in the shoulder. "Shut up," she said, though the massive smile on her face gave away that she didn't mind at all. While she put the glass in the microwave, Kai wrapped his arms around her waist, and started kissing her neck.

"Hmmm..." she contently hummed, but knew she had to cut it short. "Three minutes, and I'm yours again, okay?" she mused, even though she wasn't the least bit happy about it.

-"Microwave hasn't pinged yet, we have a moment," he replied and continued kissing her neck, while letting one hand slowly wander up. Jinora didn't stop him, in fact, she was strangely looking forward to it. Similarly, she pushed her hips backwards a little bit, knowing it would essentially make her grind him. Not something she'd be really opposed to anyway, but he required a gentle nudge in the right direction here, or at least the green light from her.

They were once again interrupted, only this time it was the microwave. Jinora sighed and broke free from his grip, before taking the milk from the microwave. "Back in a minute," she said, and pressed a short peck on his lips.

As she walked up the stairs, it did give her a moment to think. How far was she willing to go just now? Kai feeling her up like that felt natural, on top of feeling good. It was a little nervous, sure, but then again, he was cautious when it came to everything concerning her. That was to be expected. And heck, when he did actually get going, it felt really natural, a common extension of their relationship. They'd been at it for two months now, and this sort of thing coming on now felt... natural.

But first things first: getting Rohan back to sleep. Definitely the least rambunctious one of her siblings, and the fact that he was the youngest also kind of made him the most adorable one by default. (Also Jinora's favorite, though she couldn't admit this, of course.)

-"Hey, sis," he said when she came into his room.

Jinora smiled as she sat on the side of his bed and held the glass out to him. He tried reaching out for it immediately, but she held it back. "Sit up first, you can't drink lying down."

Rohan did, and drank his milk. "Will you read me a story?" he asked with his massive green eyes on puppy-dog setting.

"I already read you a story," Jinora said, though with a playful undertone. She already knew that this was going to happen. "But okay. How about I read you _Six Bears Get in a Pickle_?"

-"Yeah, I like that one."

Jinora smiled as she pulled the book from the shelf, and sat back down on his bed. "Once upon a time, there was a family of six bears..."

* * *

Having put Rohan back to sleep allowed her to quietly make her retreat, and was surprised to see Kai waiting for her in the living room with his jacket back on and a rather serious expression on his face. "What's wrong?"

-"I think I should go."

"What? Rohan is asleep again, we're in the clear."

Kai shook his head. "Nah, we just used up most of our guardian angels for the night. I should split before I push my luck too much and get caught by your folks."

Jinora sighed, because he was probably right about that. "Fine..." she groaned, though not without leaning against him again with her hands on his chest. "But tell me this: since when are you the responsible one?"

He chuckled. "Since you're the one getting in trouble if I fuck up." He pressed a long, slow kiss on her lips, resting his hands on her hips. (Would be nice if he let them slip down just a _little_ bit more...)

When he broke away, Jinora lingered for just a moment, letting that thought sink in. Since when was she the one who wanted to be more physical?

Then again, he was her boyfriend, so if there was anyone she could explore with, it was him, and he didn't seem to mind either. Maybe something to discuss at a later time.

-"Alright, I'm really going now," Kai said, and walked back to the front door.

Jinora followed him, in no small part because he was holding her hand and dragged her along with him. "See you tomorrow."

-"Yeah," he said, finally pulling his hand free. "See you tomorrow, babe."

* * *

 _Merry Christmas, everyone._


	18. Kai's Home

So far, this was Jinora's favorite part of the day, though that bar had been set pretty low. It had started out by bickering a bit more with Ikki over breakfast, only to be silenced again by Pema on the drive to school, after which she had to sit through incredibly tedious literature, maths, and geography. The second half of her day was slightly less boring but also more pointless, with PE first followed by music, which turned out to be mostly musical theory.

But all of that was feeling kind of irrelevant now, because she and Kai had set up a date. They'd meet up after their last class in a quiet corridor in the school, stall for twenty minutes so they could leave together without being spotted.

Of course, what this also meant was that they had twenty minutes to kill, which Jinora thought should be done by sitting on his lap and slowly and comfortably make out for that time.

However, as they got closer to when they were supposed to leave, Kai suddenly broke away. "Hey, do you mind meeting up at the park later on? I'll take you to the theater from there," he asked, a hopeful look in his eyes.

But Jinora was confused. "Later? I thought we were gonna go see a movie now. I already lied to my mom and everything." It was only a white lie, she said that she was going with Fen, so not entirely a lie.

He sighed. "I have to pick up something from home first. Shila told me to go pick up my youngest brother from school first, and I need to ditch my stuff before that. Can't do that on a bike."

Jinora suddenly felt a little guilty. They were coming up on the three-month mark of their relationship, and yet Jinora still hadn't been to Kai's place. Hell, they had been in the same class for seven years, and yet she had never seen his foster parents, Shila and Kinto. Though that was less surprising, in all fairness.

But now, he'd snuck into her place more times than she could count, but never the other way around, and Jinora was starting to get curious. It almost looked and felt like he was somehow uncomfortable with telling her this. "Kai, you know you don't have to hide that from me, right?"

-"I don't know, it's not as nice as your place."

"Do you think I care about that?" Jinora put a gentle hand on his cheek and nudged his line of sight down again. "I want to know how my boyfriend lives, and I wouldn't care if that's either a box or a mansion."

Kai chuckled. "Well, it's closer to a box." Even though he still seemed a little hesitant, he couldn't resist Jinora's puppy-dog eyes. "Alright, you can come, and then we'll go to the movie."

(Success.)

They were quick to make sure that they were the only ones on the school parking lot, and Jinora once again hopped on the back. She had noticed how Kai was now becoming a bit less of a show-off with it, not loudly revving the engine all the time, and when she was on the back, he also drove a bit more carefully.

It was a while, cruising through the city to what Jinora knew wasn't exactly the best neighborhood in town. It was not too far from the skatepark, but on the exact opposite side from where Jinora lived, and between her house and Kai's, the prices dropped dramatically, so to speak.

-"Well, this is me," he said, stopping in front of a rather run-down apartment block. Jinora decided it would be best not to say anything, as she really didn't want to start lying to her boyfriend as well.

They went up the stairs to the second floor, where Kai pulled out a key and opened up a door at the end of the hallway. "Welcome to my humble abode, emphasis being on the 'humble'," he remarked.

Jinora looked around, and he really wasn't kidding. The living room was small and it reeked of smoke (no wonder Kai picked up the habit), and everything just looked off and dirty. They walls and ceiling looked like they were once off-white, but now they had turned gray and brown from all the smoking that presumably went on inside.

A raspy woman's voice came from the kitchen. "Kai? Did you pick up Neron yet?"

-"No, Shila, I just came to dump my stuff, then I'm on my way."

The she came out of the kitchen and was surprised to see Jinora. In turn, Jinora was amazed just how shabby she looked. Her hair was uncared for and was turning gray already, her face wrinkly, and her teeth yellow. Kai had told Jinora that she was younger than her own mother, but Shila looked much, much older. That and the awful floral dress that should have been thrown out fifteen years ago didn't help much either. "Who's the broad?"

"Excuse me?" Jinora said, raising an eyebrow.

-"Shila, this is Jin. Are you done? Neron shouldn't be waiting any longer."

She never took her eyes off Jinora. "Fine, go your own way." This time around, Jinora detected a little bit of a slur in her voice.

Kai quickly went into his room, clearly eager to get Jinora out of there as soon as humanly possible.

-"So are you another one of Kai's skanks?" Shila asked, clearly not in the mindset to be very nice. She slumped over to a worn-out barcalounger, and the way she wasn't quite walking straight told Jinora that her earlier suspicions were probably correct: that woman was drunk.

"I like to think I'm not," she coldly answered.

-"Hmm, must be me then."

-"Yes, it is," Kai interrupted them. "Jin, let's go. Bye!" Before Shila could say anything else, they were out the door again.

"Boy, she's a real charmer, isn't she?"

Kai loudly sighed. "And you were wondering why I didn't want you at my place."

"Well, I'm not anymore, if that's what you're asking." Jinora decided it was safer to wait until they were outside again to ask the most delicate question hanging between them, where it would stay between them, rather than in the acoustic stairwell. "Kai, is Shila an alcoholic?"

He was silent for a moment. "So you figured that out."

"Wasn't exactly higher psychology."

Kai was still hesitant to say it out loud. "She is," he ultimately admitted.

"Then why is she still allowed to be a foster parent? I'm pretty sure being an alcoholic would disqualify you."

-"They're good at hiding it whenever those people come by, and there is a big shortage of foster parents in the city. They have to work with what they can get, and what they can get, is people like Shila and Kinto. They're better than nothing."

Jinora noticed something off about how he said that. "Wait, what is that about your foster dad?" Kai visibly berated himself for letting that slip. "Kai..." Jinora said, not sure where she wanted that to go. "I can't help you if you won't let me."

-"This is not something you can help. It's between me and him."

It was abundantly clear that it wasn't something he liked to talk about, but Jinora felt like it was something they _had_ to talk about. "How badly did he abuse you?"

Kai let a long silence fall between them before turning to Jinora. "I want you to promise me that whatever you hear right now, stays between us, okay?"

"Of course."

-"Promise me."

"Kai, I promise. It'll never leave me." She looked him right in the eye, and he knew she meant it.

-"He beat me," Kai admitted. "Ever since 5th grade when I first came to live with them. Shila was usually too drunk to do something about it, or she just didn't care. In his defense, I was a handful, but it was more out of frustration than punishment."

"That's not an excuse, that's horrible! Why didn't you tell anyone?"

He sighed again. "Because it wouldn't make things better. Yes, Shila and Kinto are assholes, but plenty of foster parents are the same or worse. Plus, by the time I got there, they had already taken in three of my younger sisters, and if I would report them, we would also be ripped apart. That problem only got worse the more kids they took in. It's hard enough to find good shelter for just one of us, but do you really think there is any hope that all six of us can remain together?"

Jinora thought about it for a moment. "No, I suppose there isn't," she admitted with a small voice. "Is it still happening?"

-"No," Kai shook his head. "It stopped when I was 14 and big enough to hit him back if he beat me or my siblings, so it was too risky for him. It's why we don't really have any nice stuff, he keeps breaking it."

By now, they were coming up on the school. It wasn't out yet, but there were a whole bunch of moms waiting outside the gate for their children. The hushed conversation meant that Jinora and Kai could lean up against a low wall and enjoy some relative privacy in the crowd. She took his hand and gave it an affectionate squeeze. "I'm really sorry about all this. That you had to go through it, I mean."

Kai softly squeezed back in acknowledgement. "Well, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?"

"Don't think you should be applying it to this so casually, but then again, I'm no expert on this." She briefly let it fall silent. "Have you thought about what's going to happen after you're done with school?"

-"Well, I think it's best that I stay close, the community college on the other side of town. Not like I can afford much more, but still. I'll be close-ish, and next in line are the twins, who are only a year behind me. After they move out, there's a decent chance we can keep the other three together if we report them. That's the plan."

Jinora let that sink in for a moment. Sure, it wasn't a brilliant plan, and there were holes in it, but at least it was a plan. And that coming from Kai meant that this was something he really cared about.

She was sprung from her thoughts when the school bell rang and hordes of kids started coming out. A boy who Jinora thought was about six soon ran towards the couple. "Kai!" he yelled enthusiastically.

-"Hey there, buddy!" Kai said, picking him up. "How're you doing?"

-"Really good! We made this drawing, and I can't wait to show you!"

Kai chuckled. "Well, you'll have to wait a bit, because first we gotta go home. Shall we?"

"Ahem," Jinora politely cleared her throat, though she was kind of reluctant to do so, because watching Kai with the boy was adorable. "Aren't you going to introduce us?"

-"Right, where are my manners? Neron, this is Jin, my girlfriend. Jin, Neron, my little brother."

He immediately protested. "I'm not little!"

Kai chuckled. "Of course you aren't," he said, winking at Jinora, who couldn't help but chuckle at this.

The walk back to Kai's apartment was entirely like this. Neron was adorable, he reminded her a lot of Rohan a couple of years earlier. Energetic, but still manageable. She suspected this wasn't the one Kai was talking about when he said that his siblings were usually a handful. It could also just be that he was calm now, when it was just her and Kai, and there weren't any others to rile him up.

Whatever the case, it was most surprising to see just how good Kai was with him. It was obvious that not only did Kai love Neron, Neron _adored_ Kai. She wondered if he was as good with all kids, or just with his little brother. Whichever one of those it was, she certainly hoped it was the first one in case of...

Actually, that might be a little bit premature. Still, couldn't hurt to keep this in the back of her mind for now.

But watching him like this was both warming her up and sending a chill down her spine at the same time. His affection for Neron was genuine, that much Jinora was certain of, but he also had to hide so much from him. Neron probably didn't have the first clue what had happened to Kai in the past and hopefully never would.

This brought her back to the thought of what she could do. Kai was right that she couldn't do much to help him, and that was what's bugging her. If she would tell anyone, his goal of keeping his siblings together would fail, and they'd be torn apart. If she didn't tell anyone, Shila and Kinto would win. The best thing for now though was probably just to leave it be, because Kai did say they were at sort of a stalemate, however undesirable the circumstances of that were.

-"What's going on, babe?"

Jinora was suddenly snapped out of her thoughts and hadn't really realized that they were already back at Kai's apartment building. "Oh, just thinking. Don't want to feel useless, you know?"

Kai nodded. "I do, but this isn't your fight."

-"You guys are fighting?" Neron asked.

They both laughed, but Kai put his little brother at ease. "No, don't worry. Just something we were talking about earlier."

-"Well, I want to know!"

"Another time, maybe."

Neron was still pouting, and it was adorable. But they were also at the door of the apartment itself, and Kai ushered him in. Alright, Jin and I are going to see a movie. Be nice to Shila, okay?"

-"Fine..."

"He's cute," Jinora commented once Kai had pulled the door shut behind him."

-"As are you," he replied with a sly smirk.

"Charmer," Jinora chuckled and pressed a quick peck on his lips.

Kai just saw the whole thing as a victory. "Now how about I finally take you to see that movie?"

"Take me away."


	19. Making Up

Jinora sighed as she walked out of school. The next few weeks were going to be busy as hell, so she couldn't even go and see Kai now. Well, part of her wanted to sneak in ten or fifteen minutes with him, but with the workload they had right now, it simply couldn't be done. It was that horrible time of year where everything as due at the same time.

Of course, Kai didn't care as much. Even though Jinora couldn't help but smile as she realized that he was putting in slightly more effort since they got together, it still wasn't brilliant. Still, progress is progress. He was becoming more punctual, had his homework done more often than not, and had generally stopped the business of loudly revving his motorcycle every time he arrived or took off.

(It's the small things in life.)

It still irked her that well over two months after she found out about his foster parents, she still hadn't been able to come up with a way to help him. She tried calling Child Services under the guise of writing an essay on the subject, but all she got out of them was official bullshit that might as well have been recorded on a tape. That wasn't going to help anyone.

And now she was slumping over to the car park, done with today. It was Friday, and this was the weekend that she was planning to use for working ahead. Normally, Friday was the best day for her and Kai to go out into town and do something, be it a walk in the park, cup of tea in a café, but also more specialized things. Kai had taken the effort to take her to the release of a new book that Jinora had been talking about, but she couldn't find a store that had it. She had almost resigned herself to ordering it online, but Kai found a store and took her to it. It was definitely one of the sweetest things he'd ever done, or anyone had ever done for her. He had also invited her along when he got himself another tattoo, and while Jinora didn't really know how to feel about that, he was utterly sure of himself, so she went along with him.

He got an anchor on his right hip, and she couldn't help but wonder what else he already had, thinking that it did look quite sexy on him. Kai told her there were more, even if she hadn't seen them. They hadn't really gotten much more physical, though Kai was becoming slightly more assertive in the fleeting moments of real privacy they did manage to steal. Going to second base a few more times, pinching her butt at others, and Jinora loved it all.

Masturbating definitely wasn't something Jinora frequently did, but she just couldn't help herself anymore. There had been more than one session with Kai as the primary mental stimulus, in various stages of undress, of course. He had once carefully asked her for 'spicy' pictures of herself, but Jinora had flat-out refused that. She didn't like that people were doing it, and Kai conceited. She preferred to use her imagination, and it also saved them the risk of getting caught.

Overall though, they were pretty careful, with Jinora sometimes bringing different clothes and always switching out her glasses for lenses, and those things had paid off.

No one outside of the skate park had found out about them yet, not even Fen, bizarrely enough. Jinora was kind of amazed that they had already made it five months without her best friend knowing exactly what was up. Fen had suspicions, sure, but could never find anything conclusive. She may be a yenta, but she wouldn't spread rumors like that about Jinora. That would just be a total bitch-move and nothing like Fen. That meant that the person closest to Jinora in school would keep her trap shut and that the secret would remain just that: a secret.

And yet none of that all could help that she was going to be spoken for the next few weeks. Interactions with Kai had been quite frequent, especially if it meant avoiding Ikki. The relationship between Jinora and her sister had mostly cooled down, but that was exactly the problem: it was frigid. There was no real animosity between them anymore, but there also wasn't any progress. Everything had been locked in place, they were both entrenched, and neither one of them was about to move.

Of course, this had been much to the frustration of their parents, especially Pema. Unfortunately, there wasn't much she could do about from there. She'd tried talking to them separately, but that hadn't worked, not even a little bit.

It did, however, give Jinora a good idea about what was going to happen next. She'd gotten a text from her mother telling her to come to the car park proper as opposed to the street in front of the school where most parents usually picked up their children.

-"Hey, sweetheart," Pema opened as soon as Jinora walked up there.

"Hey, Mom," she replied. "Say, why did you ask me to come down here instead of the street?"

-"Because it's a nice day and we might as well talk out here."

Jinora sighed. "This is about me and Ikki, isn't it?"

Pema quickly nodded. "This little feud between you has gone on long enough, and I am just about sick of it. Since it's a nice day, we are going to sit out here and talk this over until you two have reached some sort of resolution, because it is starting to border the ridiculous."

"Mom..." she groaned, already regretting not taking the bus home.

-"No buts, Jinora. You know just as well as I do that this can't go on any longer."

"Hey, I extended an olive branch twice now, and neither one had a lasting impact."

Pema nodded in agreement. "I know, we talked about this. I also talked with Ikki, and now it's about time you talk with each other. I'll act as the mediator, but it'll have to come from you."

Jinora thought this was a pretty good opportunity to get out if it. It had actually been kind of peaceful without Ikki yapping her ear off all day long. "Why me and not her?"

-"Because you're the oldest and the wisest, and you know damn well what I'm talking about."

Kind of to Jinora's surprise, her mother sounded more irritated than anything else, like she was tired. Both of them had a decent position to come from, even if they were stretching it a bit. "Would it help if I said I'm busy?"

Pema shook her head. "No, because this can be over as quickly as you want it to be. In fact, there she is."

Ikki was indeed just coming around the corner, already having a somewhat suspicious look in her eyes. "What's going on?" she asked, definitely not trusting the situation.

"Hello to you too," Jinora snarked, immediately earning a disapproving look from her mother.

-"As I was just telling Jinora, you two are going to make amends, because whatever it is that's going between you has done so long enough," Pema said. "Now I have all the time in the world, and we're not leaving this parking lot until you have reached an agreement of sorts." She leaned against the hood of their car and crossed her arms in determination. There was no arguing on this one.

Ikki threw her mother an unconvinced look, who didn't budge. Instead, she turned to Jinora, who could only shrug. They weren't going to get out of this one. "Fine," she groaned. "What do you have in mind?"

"Hey, I'm asking you," Jinora said. "I tried twice, and both times it went nowhere."

-"That's because the moment we made a truce, you ended up yelling at me again."

"Which had absolutely nothing to do with that truce itself and you know it. You'd have been pissed as well if the roles were reversed."

This was the time Pema spoke up. "Girls..." she warned. "We're not here just throw accusations back and forth."

Jinora sighed. "Fine. What do you think we have to do in order to end this whole thing between us?" she asked her sister.

-"I don't know, you seem pretty content keeping it this way."

"Well, I'm not gonna lie to you, it's been nice and quiet, and I'm gonna need that the next couple of weeks."

-"See?" Ikki said, raising her hands at Jinora. "This is exactly what I was saying. She doesn't want to make up."

Pema didn't look convinced. "There are different kinds of quiet, and yours isn't the right kind. Jinora is going to need the time to study, but you two not talking is not because of that."

Both of the girls nodded at that, because it was true. "But if we're both okay with the situation as is, why not leave it at this?" Jinora offered up. "I don't really see the downside here."

-"Because you're family and I don't want to have you two not talking for the foreseeable future," her mother coldly replied. "You are sisters, and I know what that's like, I have two of them. We went through our ups and downs just like you have, but never something like this, going months without talking to each other. So, Ikki, what is bothering you?"

Ikki sighed. "I don't know what she's capable of anymore."

"Are you worried that I would actually hit you?" Jinora asked in surprise.

-"Well, I wouldn't put it beyond you these days. It felt like you wanted to that night at aunt Kya's."

The older girl sighed. "We may not get along, but I would never hurt you like that."

This was the point where Pema decided to come to Jinora's aid. "Ikki, you know your sister is not a violent person, and I don't believe that she would hurt you like you are afraid of."

It fell silent after this, and it was clear that both Jinora and Pema were waiting for Ikki's response. "Okay," she ultimately nodded. "Do you want us to shake on it or something?"

-"No, I want you two to act like sisters again. Try and talk to each other over dinner, go and do something together like you used to."

Jinora shot Ikki a meaningful look, because there was no getting out of it anymore. "Fine," the younger girl said. "You mean like, go to a movie or something?"

It actually sounded sincere, which had been rare the past couple of months. It only made Jinora feel more guilty about having to turn her down, at least for now. "I can't," she said. "These next few weeks are going to be hell, and I can't take an afternoon off to go see a movie with you." Ikki looked a little disappointed, so Jinora tried to cheer her up. "Tell you what, after the last exam, I'll have some more time, and we'll go then, okay?"

-"Deal."

* * *

 _Yes, I'm well aware it's a filler chapter with not much going for it that mainly exists to move around a couple of chess pieces on the board and is consequently pretty exposition heavy **but** I have a good reason for it. What's likely going to happen is that the next one is going to be a bit of filler/fluff, though that chapter is a concept as of yet. But after that, it's going to be a big one, or if it keeps growing like it has, two big ones. So there is plenty to look forward to._


	20. Out (Part 1)

Jinora was preparing herself to go out again, as it had been _far_ too long since she and Kai went on a date. It had been nearly three weeks since they got some proper time alone together, somewhere they didn't have to hide it. These weeks had been extremely busy for Jinora, with a ton of tests and exams all very close together, so she had spent nearly all of her time studying. Hell, she barely had time to go skating, it was simply a luxury she couldn't afford right now. He had promised her they would go to some place special, and they wouldn't have to worry about anyone from school seeing them.

Still, it couldn't hurt to be cautious, so Jinora omitted her glasses and instead opted for lenses, and slung on a hoodie so that if anyone from the skate park saw them, it would at least be Jin they'd recognize.

-"Is that really what you're planning to wear?" Ikki's voice suddenly came from the door, scaring the hell out of Jinora. Things between them had been a little better since that talk they had in the school parking lot, but it was far from ideal.

"Did no one ever teach you how to knock properly?"

-"Nope," came her sister's cheery response. "Besides, we need to leave soon if we want to catch the movie in time."

This had the older girl at a loss. "Movie? What movie?"

-"Ice Age, you promised me we would go see the new one together!"

Jinora inwardly swore, because she may or may not have made a vague promise to do that. "Ikki, I can't, I'm going out with friends. Haven't done that in ages."

-"But you promised me!"

If her memory served her well, she had an opportunity to get out of it now. "I said I'd see if I could make time, and I can't, so deal with it."

Ikki pouted and stomped on the floor. "I'm telling Mom!"

"Go nuts." Jinora resolutely turned back to the mirror, applying the last of her make-up before heading out. She knew she'd have to hurry, as her mother would most definitely berate her for this.

She slipped into her jacket, but just before she could make it out the door, she was stopped.

-"Jinora, a word?"

Begrudgingly, Jinora turned around to face her mother. "I'd imagine this is about Ikki?"

-"Correct," was the dry reply with a discerning nod. "She says you promised to take her to the movies, she has been looking forward to it for weeks, and now you're bailing on her. I thought you were making progress, and now you throw this on top."

"Of course she said that. For the record: I didn't promise her anything, I said I _might_ take her _if_ I could make time. Mom, this is the first time in three weeks that I have the opportunity to do what _I_ want, so excuse me if I choose to spend time with my friends and not with her. Why can't you go with her?"

Pema sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Because I still have to iron and fold a mountain of laundry and then do groceries. That aside, she's your sister, you ought to make an effort for her as well."

"I'll take her tomorrow," Jinora said, spreading her arms to emphasize her words.

-"Not an option, she has her gymnastics competition tomorrow." Her mother thought for a moment. "Since you are partially right, I know how hard you've been working over the past couple of weeks, I'm going to give you two options: either you take Ikki to the movies now, or you go with us to her competition tomorrow. If you have time for your friends, then you also have time for your sister."

The younger girl sighed and let her head hang, realizing that she didn't really have a choice here. " _Fine_ , I'll go with you tomorrow. Now can I go?"

Pema shook her head, disappointed with Jinora's tone, but did concede. "Alright, you can go now. Make sure you're home before dinner."

With that, Jinora was out the door, and on her way to the watershed shack where she had agreed to meet Kai. Why there was a bit beyond her, but she wasn't in the mood to question him on something little like that.

The reason soon became apparent to her, though. In fact, she heard it before she could see it: Kai had come on his motorcycle. "Hey babe," he said, pressing a chaste kiss on her lips. "You alright?"

"Yeah," Jinora unconvincingly sighed. "Ikki was acting up, it's gonna land me in a lot of trouble, I can just feel it."

He softly squeezed her hand. "Want to sit here and mope for a bit, or do you want me to take your mind off of things?"

She smiled, realizing she was being unjustly bitter towards him as well. "As tempting as the former is, I'm gonna say the latter."

His smile soon came back as well, and he held a helmet out to her. "Hop on, we're going to have some fun." She quickly clasped the helmet on and wrapped her arms around his waist, enjoying the feeling of comfort that brought with it.

The speed at which Kai was powering down the freeway felt liberating, and Jinora did every much enjoy feeling of the wind hitting her body. Not quite so much as to go into a 'Jack, I'm flying'-pose (she wasn't world-weary just yet), but it was just... _nice_.

After about 15 minutes, they arrived at the carnival, which was on the other side of town. "What do you think?" he asked, a hopeful look on his face.

Jinora smiled, and Kai's slightly worried frown turned around as well. "I love it," she said.

They joined the queue, and Kai insisted on paying for the tickets like a true gentleman, even though Jinora knew her funds were more expansive. Still, she didn't want to turn what was promising to be the only enjoyable part of her weekend sour, so she just left it there.

After having gone in the super-sized giant's stride and one of the rollercoasters, Jinora felt like a drink, and this time, she insisted on paying. Kai objected at first, but after giving him a stern look, he still agreed, knowing just as well as Jinora that he was broke.

They continued to walk around the theme park when Jinora spotted something from the corner of her eye. (Oh, hell no.) "Kai, eleven o'clock, Bolin and Opal. We have about 5 seconds to decide if we want to spend the day with them."

-"Huh, what?"

Too late. "Kai! Jin!" Bolin yelled out, dragging Opal with him. "What are you doing here?"

Jinora froze in place, realizing that she couldn't just ignore them anymore. "Well, you know, Kai and I were enjoying our day out." She had to restrain Jin from taking over and emphasizing the 'were' in that sentence.

-"Of course you were!" Bolin said with his typical cheery demeanor. "Have you been in the haunted house yet? Korra told me it was awesome here."

Kai shook his head. "No, we haven't, but by all means, lead the way." He did, and Jinora and Kai decided to follow them, because it probably couldn't hurt for now. There wasn't a queue, so they could just go in without any problems, sitting a four-seater cart, Bolin and Opal in front, Kai and Jinora in the back.

The cart had barely started moving, or Opal was already clinging to Bolin. Jinora saw it, and looked over to Kai, who rolled his eyes. This was going to be a _long_ ride.

Unfortunately, that prediction came true. There were multiple opportunities for Kai to make a gagging gesture, which made Jinora laugh every time. It was true. It's not like they themselves were entirely blameless, but they were nowhere near as bad as Bolin and Opal.

In fact, it was starting to get to the point where it was a little bit grating.

-"Wanna have some fun?" Kai asked when they were just out of earshot.

Jinora looked over, seeing the smirk on her boyfriend's face that spelled trouble. "That look doesn't spell good news. What do you have in mind?"

Kai non-committedly shrugged. "Finding out a way to dump Romeo and Juliet over there," he said, nodding to Opal and Bolin. "I'm starting to get fed up with their constant PDA's."

She chuckled. "'Starting'? You're more patient than I am, and that's saying something. What'd you have in mind?" They glanced over to the aforementioned pair, and rolled their eyes in perfect sync, as Bolin and Opal once again had their tongues deep in each other's throats. "Hey, lovebirds, it's a G-rated zone here!" Jinora called out.

They quickly split, both of them having something of a faint blush on their cheeks. "Sorry..." Opal muttered, barely loud enough for Jinora to hear it.

-"You still actually wanna go in rides, or just spend all day making out in the corner?"

Bolin smiled. "Good point. Can we go in that one?" he said, pointing to a slingshot-like device. (Jinora wouldn't go in that thing for her weight in gold and diamonds, but Opal seemed to be easier to sway.)

-"I don't know, Bo," she cautiously said.

-"I'll hold your hand the entire time," he promised, and she conceded, upon which they joined the queue, just out of earshot from the younger couple.

Kai's smile slowly grew. "This is almost too easy. Keep them distracted for a moment, will you?" He walked off, and Jinora didn't know where, though she had a pretty good idea.

'Distraction' was not a very precise term, so Jinora would just have to improvise. (Fortunately, one of her stronger suits.) She joined her friends, who were, miraculously enough, not making out when they were left alone for ten seconds. "Say, answer me something: are you just doing this because Kai and I said you should?"

Bolin just smiled. "Nah, this is something I always think is cool, but Mako was always too much of a sourpuss to go in. Fortunately, Opal can be persuaded. You going in after us?"

"Sure, why not?" Jinora bluffed. "Little more partial to rollercoasters myself, but if Kai wants to, sure."

-"Speaking of Kai, where is he?" Opal asked, looking around for him.

"I honestly don't know," Jinora answered, which was actually true. She had a sneaking suspicion of what he was up to, but it wouldn't take long before she'd find out, because he just came walking around the corner again, a massive grin plastered on his face.

-"Sorry, had to take a leak," he said as soon as he joined the group again. "Looks like you're up," he said to Bolin and Opal, and they quickly strapped themselves in. "Watch this," Kai smirked to Jinora. "This is gonna be good."

Jinora kept her eyes wide open, and saw the helping guy walk up to the seats, checking how they were strapped in.

-"Ready for launch!" a guy at the controls yelled.

From the corner of her eye, Jinora could see the first guy take a bolt out of his pocket, dropping it right alongside the seats of the slingshot. "Hey, what's this?" he loudly asked, holding up the bolt where Bolin and Opal could clearly see it.

-"Launch!"

-"NO, NO, WAIT!" the pair yelled simultaneously, but they were launched anyway, Opal yelling so loud they could still hear her when she had reached the top of the ride.

Jinora looked over to her boyfriend, trying to look disapproving, but the massive grin on her face would instantly give away that she actually found it very, very funny. Her quasi-stern look worked on Kai's laughing muscles, which in turn affected hers. Before long, they were both laughing out loud, aided by the stream of swears and insults coming from above them. Bolin and Opal had realized what Kai had been up to, and were now probably in the process of thinking up ways for their revenge.

-"Reel them back in," the guy who checked the straps said, and the control guy did just that.

-"I think that's our cue to scram," Kai jovially said, and together, made a run for it, determined to stay out of the hands of what would undoubtedly be the world's angriest couple.

They ran across most of the carnival, eventually deciding to hide in the arcade for a while, ducking between two stands. "Okay, I will admit, _that_ was fun," Jinora said, looking out to see if Bolin and Opal had followed them. The coast appeared to be clear, and she turned back to her boyfriend.

At this point, she couldn't stop herself; she had to kiss him. With the light only coming in from the side, he was devilishly handsome, and being in such close proximity, she was simply unable to resist him.

"Thank you for today," Jinora softly said. "It's been a while since I had this much fun."

-"But our day out is nowhere near over."

"Oh, semantics," she chuckled. "I really did need this."

Kai smiled, though not his typical slanted smirk, more like a very genuine smile. "You are welcome." She was about to check if the coast was still clear when Kai pulled her back to take a selfie. Not her favorite thing to do in the world, she didn't really get people's obsession with documenting their own face with everything, but for now, she'd make an exception.

Just as he was about to snap the picture, Jinora turned her head, pressing a chaste kiss on his cheek, making Kai blush. "Like I said; good fun."

* * *

 _What's this? Not another month-long wait? So unorthodox! Kidding aside, this was it for part 1. Part 2 is in the works, so keep an eye out for that._


	21. Out (Part 2)

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and so did their day out at the carnival. Bolin and Opal hadn't managed to catch them to exact their revenge, which was probably a good thing for now. Still, it had been really enjoyable even with Kai unable to win anything for Jinora because she wouldn't be capable of taking it home with her anyway.

They were back at the watershed shack again, with her already standing next to the bike. "You sure you can't stretch it any longer?" Kai asked with a hopeful look in his eyes.

"I'm sure," she sighed. "Dinner is gonna be soon, and I don't want to be on the receiving end of my mom's wrath if I'm late. I'll text you later, okay?"

He did look a little disappointed, but nodded. "Okay. Come on, one more kiss." Jinora happily complied, but then it really was time to walk back home.

As soon as she stepped in, she knew that she'd have to make for her room or risk getting trapped by either one of her parents, or worse, Ikki. At least this way, she could quietly take off her hoodie, replace her lenses with more comfortable glasses before being yelled at.

When she got back downstairs, Jinora got the expected death-glare from Ikki that was easy enough to ignore and went straight to the kitchen, where her mother was preparing dinner.

"Hey, Mom," she cautiously started.

Pema looked up. "Hey, sweetheart. How was your day out?"

This was strange. Why was she so casual about this? "It... It was fine, I guess? We went to the carnival at the other end of town."

-"Hmm." Her mother's tone was completely even, which just confused Jinora more. She got chewed out for it earlier, and now, it was just nothing. "Jinora, would you go and set the table?"

Deciding it couldn't hurt, she just went with it. "Okay, sure." Jinora quickly went to work with that, preparing the table for the six of them. She could hear noises from the living room, probably just Ikki who had decided to spend the rest of the time by watching TV. Usually, they would prepare the table together, but taking current events into account, it was for the better they didn't.

Soon enough, everything was set and the six of them were sitting at the table, waiting for Tenzin to end his prayer. Despite a modicum of tension hanging in the air, which was mostly coming from Ikki who continued to look daggers at Jinora that the latter would ignore, dinner went down as smoothly as Jinora could have hoped for.

Of course, it wasn't meant to last.

Apparently, she wasn't the only one who noticed her sister's death-glares, making Pema speak up eventually.

"Ikki, if you would like to say something, you can tell us."

Jinora looked up from her plate to see the younger girl's angry look on her, already having an idea of where this was going to go. So much for having a nice dinner.

A few moments passed and there was still no word from Ikki, which took Jinora by surprise. After all, her sister wasn't someone to keep still for long, but her stare wasn't faltering nonetheless. If looks could kill, Jinora was sure she would be firmly in her grave by now..

Becoming impatient, Pema raised a brow. "Well?"

It seemed like her sister went from venting to giving her the silent treatment now, but unfortunately for her, it didn't work on the older sibling who kept staring back at her. "You ditched me," Ikki suddenly burst out.

Jinora scoffed. "We've been over this, I didn't ditch you. I have a life, go look for one of your own."

-"Jinora!" Pema intervened.

She internally berated herself. That was Jin getting the upper hand again at a moment where it was definitely not welcome.

Naturally, Ikki wasn't too pleased with the answer. "You're only thinking of yourself! Since weeks ago, it's all about school or friends for you. You keep saying you would try to make time for me, but you never do."

"Last time I checked, I didn't have someone keeping tabs on what I'm doing," Jinora threw back.

At this, Tenzin smacked his hands flat down on the table, putting a sudden halt to his daughters' bickering. "Alright, that's enough. I don't want a fight at my dining table. We are going to finish this and then you two are going to have a conversation like grown-ups."

Jinora knew this was going nowhere, and that dinner could only take a turn for the bad from there. Since she was done anyway, she stood up, and went back to the kitchen, where she started cleaning up. A distraction, maybe, but one she needed right now.

Soon enough, she wsa joined by her mother, who looked disappointed. "I thought you two had been making progress."

"So did I," Jinora scoffed. "Can't really work with her acting entitled like that."

-"Jinora, your father was right. You two are going to talk this out - tonight. I'm not going to have you ignore each other for another six months."

"Fine."

After helping her mother clean in the kitchen, Jinora went to her room again, where she started texting Kai.

 **Jinora:** _Well dinner went great *rolls eyes*_

 **Kai:** _Sister troubles?_

 **Jinora:** _No, you think? What gave it away?_

 **Kai:** _Don't direct too much of your frustrations at her, it's not good for either of you_

Ikki walked in, once again without knocking. "Jin, Dad wants us to talk."

 **Jinora:** _Speak of the devil..._ she quickly texted, before turning to her sister. "I know, but not before you learn how to knock," she snidely threw at her, and turned back to her phone, where Kai was typing a response.

Ikki squinted, clearly not pleased with this, took a few steps forward, and before Jinora could react, snatched her phone right out of her hands, and ran away.

"Hey! Give that back, you little brat!" She chased after her little sister, but wasn't quick enough. She could hear the sound of her receiving another message, and this had her worried. Ikki could just read her whole text history with Kai, most of which was for Jinora's eyes only.

-"MOOOOM!" Ikki's voice rang through the air. That definitely didn't bode well for Jinora, a point which was proven moments later. As it turned out, when she was committed, Ikki was suddenly faster and lighter on her feet than her older sister, which was surprising. Before Jinora could catch her younger sister, she was down the stairs, waving the phone triumphantly in their parents' faces. "Jinora has a boyfriend! It's Kai Fong!"

This was exactly the aftermath she'd feared. She didn't know yet what Kai had sent last, but chances were it was fairly conclusive, given that Ikki couldn't have gone through their entire history _that_ fast. (She was a slow reader.)

By the time Jinora had finally caught up and snatched the phone back out of her sister's hand, the damage had already been done: Kai had sent a picture. In truth, she really liked that picture, he'd only taken it earlier that day, and it was the selfie of the two of them. It had come out as adorable as she hoped it would, with the faint blush on Kai's cheek.

Didn't really work in her favor now though, especially now that Ikki had outed her.

Her father remained expressionless, but her mother's eyes grew wide. "Is this true, Jinora?"

She sighed, as she realized she couldn't lie anymore. The genie was out of the bottle. "Yes, it is."

-"Boys, go to your rooms," Pema ordered.

-"But Mom..." Meelo started to protest, but it fell on deaf ears.

-" _Now_!"

Both Meelo and Rohan knew better than to fight it when their mother struck that tone, so they quietly made themselves scarce.

-"Ikki, how do you know this?"

"She stole my phone _while I was texting_!" Jinora yelled before her sister even had a chance of answering. "She yanked the damn thing right out of my hands!" She was dangerously close to losing her restrictions, to letting go of Jinora, and fully embracing Jin in front of her parents.

Her father finally spoke up. "Jinora, watch your language. Now," he said, turning to Ikki. "Is it true that you took her phone?"

The younger girl bashfully looked down and nodded.

-"Why?"

Ikki looked up to her parents. "She promised me we would go see Ice Age, and then she dumps me so she can go out!"

"'Dump you'?! I didn't dump you, you just _assumed_ I would do it because you're the princess of this house who always gets her way!" Jinora yelled back.

-"Jinora..." Tenzin warned, but it wasn't enough. She was too far gone to be reeled back in, and Jin had taken over.

"You are just a spoiled _fucking_ little brat!"

-"JINORA KATARA GYATSO!" her father's voice thundered through the air. "We do _not_ use that kind of language in my house!"

It went eerily quiet after that. Jinora realized she was in deep trouble, swearing like that to her sister, in front of both her parents no less. Hell, it was very likely that her brothers had heard it too. (It was actually pretty safe to assume the entire neighborhood did, given how loud she yelled it.)

-"Tenzin, you take Ikki to her room, I would like to discuss a few things with Jinora first," Pema said calmly, knowing full well that she could gain more ground on her own than if it was the two of them against her.

Once they had cleared the room, her mother softly spoke up. "How long has this been going on?"

Jinora thought about it, and realized she wouldn't gain anything by trying to deny it any longer. "About six months."

A surprised look appeared on Pema's face. "Six months? You've been dating the boy you've been fulminating over since fifth grade for six months?"

"Yes, I have. We got to know each other a lot better over that English project at the start of the year, and saw the other side of one another. A side of him that I could fall in love with."

-"Romantic as that might be, it doesn't explain why you've kept it hidden for so long."

Jinora sighed. "Because I knew _this_ ," she said, gesturing around the room, "would be the reaction I'd get. And that's my own fault, I spent so long badmouthing him and wasn't any closer to coming up with a solution without being obvious." She paused for a while. "I want you to give him a fair chance, and I feel like I already ensured he's going to hit the ground limping."

-"Well, you're not wrong there," Pema sighed. "Given your stories, he is an odd choice, and not one I would support."

A light went on in Jinora's head, and it was one she wasn't sure how to feel about. "Mom, do you think I'm dating him out of some petty act of rebellion?"

-"I don't really know what to think right now. Were you with him earlier today?"

"Yes, he took me to the carnival, we hadn't been on a date in weeks."

Pema folded her arms, clearly not pleased. "So you lied to me. To my _face_."

"Well..." Jinora was kind of at a loss there, because it was true, she had. "A white lie," she weakly attempted.

-"A white lie isn't something you keep up for six months."

-"And definitely not something you'd say to your mother," Tenzin piped up.

Pema was surprised to see him as well. "I thought you were with Ikki, why are you already back?"

-"Because I want to hear what Jinora has to say first hand."

"Great, so you can double-up on me," she snidely said.

Her father sighed. "No, Jinora, I want to know why you chose him and why you kept it from us."

"That part I already explained to Mom, because you will be automatically inclined to think the worst of him, given my stories over the past seven years. And I don't think I really _chose_ him, circumstances happened. Same reason you two are together. We were in the same social setting, had a few stumbles, but you made it work, because here you are, 35 years and four children later, and you're still together."

She smiled as she saw her parents share a meaningful look, especially since her father was fidgeting with his wedding ring.

-"Jinora, I think your father and I are going to have to talk - alone," Pema eventually said.

Jinora nodded understandingly, and made for the privacy of her room, this time hoping to actually keep it private. When she could check her phone again, she scoffed as she found out that Kai had been sending messages the entire time. That they were in the middle of a conversation had totally slipped her mind. There was the selfie that got it all rolling, followed by a whole bunch of actual texts.

 **Kai:** _Hopefully that can cheer you up_

 **Kai:** _Babe?_

 **Kai:** _Are you still there?_

 **Jinora:** _Yeah, I'm back_

 **Jinora:** _Bad news: Ikki just outed us to my parents. Stole my phone and showed the picture_

 **Kai:** _Damn_

 **Kai:** _Definitely not good_

Jinora scoffed, mostly because her parents' reaction hadn't been as bad as she first would have anticipated. Heck, even judging from the fact that she couldn't hear them arguing, emotions weren't running very high over this.

 **Jinora:** _Could be worse. Reaction is TBD, I'll call you for that_

 **Kai:** _kk_

She sighed as she threw her phone onto her bed down next to her. Not long after, there was a knock on her door.

-"Jinora? Can I come in?" her father asked.

"Yes."

He did, and subsequently pulled up her desk chair so that he could sit across from her. Before saying anything, he sighed. "Jinora, I'm disappointed in you."

"Why? For having a boyfriend or about me yelling at Ikki for something reasonable?"

-"I'm mad that you lied to us, Jinora. We have raised you better than that. We're your parents, you shouldn't be afraid to tell us things like this. And yet you kept it up for over six months. I already punished your sister for what she did. In all honesty, I think you should be too, but your mother talked me out of it."

Jinora mulled it over for a moment. That actually worked out pretty well for her, given how she yelled at Ikki and everything that followed. "And what about Kai?"

Her father stroked his beard. "Yes... I'm not going to lie to you, I am _not_ excited about that. On the one hand, you say he's changed since you started going out with him, but on the other, there are seven years worth of you convincing me otherwise. I hope you understand that I'm not exactly over the moon to learn that my daughter is going out with someone who has been arrested twice."

This put her between a rock and a hard place. Should she tell the truth, which would make things worse, or keep up another white lie and maybe make it even worse than that down the line? She decided on the former. "Thrice," Jinora mumbled.

-"What was that?"

"Thrice, Kai has been arrested three times. Third one was definitely not his fault though."

Tenzin's eyebrows almost reached to the ceiling. "Regardless, he's a delinquent. Repeat offender, worse than I thought, though I appreciate the honesty. That is what I told your mother, but she was adamant that we give you the benefit of the doubt. Jinora, we want to meet him."

(Fuck.)

* * *

 _*Looks at the notes under the last chapter.* Well, that will teach me not to open my big fat mouth again. Still, here it finally is. Special thanks to erraticshift for helping me out with the dinner scene._


	22. The Bottle

Jinora was not looking forward to today. She'd been trying to do damage control, but it had been a wasted effort. Ikki wouldn't keep her trap shut if her life depended on it, let alone now that she was already punished for stealing Jinora's phone.

The genie was out of the bottle, and there was no way in hell he was going back in.

This did bring up another issue: Fen. Jinora had been debating with herself what to do, tell her via text, meet up so they could have the conversation in person, but none of it was a good option. Her best friend had intuited months ago that there was something going on between them and Jinora had just flat-out lied to her, even worse than to her parents. This was going to be one _long_ Monday.

Worryingly enough, her first two hours both happened to be classes that she didn't share with Fen. As well as they got along, Fen just wasn't any good in history and she had chosen music over chemistry.

There were a few raised eyebrows thrown her way, but Jinora and Kai had decided it would probably be best to act normal, at least not to throw any fuel on the fire.

Right now, it was the first break that Jinora was dreading. She went down to the cantina, slightly comforted by the knowledge that it was only 20 minutes long. Soon enough, she locked eyes with her best friend, who stalked over with large paces, so Jinora knew to brace for it.

Fen didn't waste any time, and as soon as she was in range, lashed out with her flat hand. Jinora's twelve years of baguazhang training kicked in immediately, telling her to lean back and dodge the slap. "Fen!" she called out. "Calm down!"

-"I'll decide that! You lied to me! You're dating Kai and you didn't tell me!"

Jinora sighed. "Yeah, thanks, I didn't think the whole school knew yet."

-"Oh, shut up, you don't get to lecture me. I had to hear it from Jian. Jian! And she hates you!"

"No shock there." Of course she would. In terms of the biggest gossip, Fen was second only to Jian, but Jian actually had ways of finding out pretty well-hidden information. Getting this out of Ikki came practically gift-wrapped for her. She was also perpetually jealous of Jinora, and Jian typically came in second.

Fen was properly pissed. "I am supposed to be your best friend, and not only did you not tell me, you flat-out lied to me when I correctly guessed what was really going on and I then had to find out from someone else."

"I didn't tell anyone, not even my parents. Ikki found out yesterday, that's why you know now. I didn't tell you because..." Should she say this or should she keep this to herself? Not lying again was the better option in principle, but also the ruder one in this case. "Because you know just as well as I do that you wouldn't be able to keep something like this a secret."

-"Oh, fuck you."

This surprised Jinora, as her friend didn't swear very often. Just not in her character. "I'm sorry that I lied to you, Fen."

-"Hmpf. Sure you are." After that, she paced off, and it was clear to Jinora that this conversation was over, at least for now. From the corner of her eye, she spotted Kai, nudging his head over and suggesting that they go outside for a minute.

She was quick to follow him, but because he had a head start, by the time she caught up with him, he was already trying to light a cigarette. "So that went well," he said.

"You heard it?"

"Babe, the entire school could hear you two arguing. Don't worry about it too much though, Fen will come around."

Jinora wasn't convinced. "I dunno, Kai, she was _pissed_."

Kai just blew out a puff of smoke. "I'm not gonna lie to you, she has every reason to be. But I've seen you two, you've been friends for years. You need to give her some time to digest it, let her see why you didn't tell her."

She sighed. "Here's hoping."

-"And what about our other issue?"

"You mean meeting my parents?"

-"Yup," Kai said, popping the 'p'. "I am _so_ fucked."

"It's not that bad," Jinora tried to comfort him, but she knew it was futile, as well as not entirely true. Chances were that it was. "We just need to prepare you. I've been thinking, and well... You might not like it."

As he looked over, a concerned expression grew on his face. "What did you have in mind?"

"You need to dress up."

Kai immediately groaned and put his cigarette back between his lips. "Christ, Jinora... How am I supposed to do that?"

"If you meet me at the North Point Mall later on, we'll buy you some new clothes. Shirt, jacket, that sort of thing."

-"I don't have the money for something like that," he tried to protest, even if Jinora was fully aware that he just didn't like to go shopping.

"But I do."

-"I'm not gonna let you pay for my clothes."

A slight smile played over Jinora's lips. "Hey, I spent years throwing shit at you in front of my parents, the least I can do is pay to dig you out. And heck, even if I hadn't, this is not something you asked me for, this is something I _want_ to do for you. You're not taking advantage of me if that's what you're worried about."

Kai sighed again and took a long drag. "I am not a fan of this."

"I know you hate shopping, but if you want to make a good impression on my parents, you can't show up in an old T-shirt and pants with holes in them."

He blew out some more smoke, away from Jinora. Somehow, the smell did give her a sense of security after what just happened in the cantina. "Fine..." he groaned, knowing full-well he wasn't getting out of this.

The bell went, and Jinora stood up. "Come on," she said, holding out her hand to pull him back to his feet. "Worry about that later, and let's just focus on making sure Fen doesn't kill me during maths."

Kai chuckled and walked with her, while Jinora didn't even care about the people staring them down as they walked to their classroom hand in hand.


	23. Meet 'N' Greet

Normally, Kai was pretty mature. Okay, he did some childish nonsense with his friends every now and again that made Jinora roll her eyes, but when he was with her, he usually acted his age.

'Usually' being the operative form there. "Christ, Kai, can you stop acting like a five-year old? I get the feeling Neron would be easier to take shopping."

Kai chuckled but also looked resigned. "Jinora, this is the third store we've gone into and none of them had what you want."

Jinora sighed. "I know, but I just want this to work, okay?"

-"You really think your parents are that shallow, that they'll judge me based on my clothes?"

"You only get one shot at a first impression. They're well on their way to deciding that they don't like you, so the least we can do is catch them off guard." She turned around to face him, looking up because of their height difference. "I know you don't care, but I do. I want my parents to like you. So please? Do this for me."

Kai loudly sighed. "Fine, fine. But only because you look so sweet right now."

Jinora chuckled. "Good enough for me. Come on." She dragged him into yet another store, reasonably convinced they'd have suits here. It wasn't like she was going to make him wear a full three-piece, just a shirt and jacket. As per Jinora's instructions, Kai had come in his best jeans, which were a nice shade of grey, so it would work out fine.

After some more browsing, Jinora finally found what she was looking for: a white dress shirt. "There we go, hold this." She could have berated him for his obvious eye-roll, but just as quickly decided it wasn't worth it. Instead, she moved over to the section of suit jackets, and quickly picked out a simple black one that looked like it was about the right size. "What do you think?"

-"That I don't have a choice."

Jinora laughed. "Trust me, when you try them on, you'll feel different. Go on, I'll wait here."

Kai disappeared into the fitting room and came out a few minutes later, and Jinora would be lying to herself if she said that she couldn't feel a wave of heat roll over her, because _fucking hell_ , did he look good. Kai normally had a fairly slender build, but the jacket made him look slightly broader than he normally was. The white shirt underneath was fine, and made a lovely contrast against his dark skin. "Okay, you look _really_ good," she immediately commented.

-"I'm wearing a monkey suit, are you kidding me? This is a joke, and an uncomfortable one at that." He tried crossing his arms, but couldn't even make his elbows touch each other.

"Kai, trust me, it makes you look super handsome."

He sighed. "I'm just having a hard time seeing it," he said, looking at himself in the floor-length mirror. "This isn't me, you know what I mean?"

Jinora nodded. "I do, but it means a lot to me that you're trying this."

-"I don't think you do. What you're trying to do is present a picture of me to your parents that they want to see, not what is actually going on. That's what got us in this mess in the first place."

This was actually a good point, and it suddenly had Jinora doubting herself. "That's true, but you also have to make a good first impression. If there has ever been a good time to use the phrase 'between a rock and a hard place', now would be it."

-"Babe, I get that, but I'm not sure that solving the issue of lying to your parents can be solved by putting on another act."

Jinora thought for a moment. "Then how about I play along with you?" This seemed to confuse Kai, so she quickly clarified. "Tell you what: if you wear that on Saturday, I'll wear a dress, okay?"

He perked up at this. "You in a dress? Well, I certainly like that prospect. You got a deal."

(Bribery saves the day.)

* * *

Today, of all days, Jinora had overslept. Part of that was because last night was good fun at the skate park, it was Friday, and watching a drunk Bolin faceplant was hilarious once they had determined he hadn't broken his nose, though Kai didn't wait for that.

Jinora didn't drink at all, because she didn't want to have a hangover today. It was going to be hard enough to get through today in one piece without additional challenges like that, because Kai was on his way. It was a frantic scramble of yelling Meelo out of the shower, berating Ikki for barging into her room again while Jinora was still in her underwear, and trying to fend off her mother who wanted her help preparing for Kai's arrival when she really had to be ready.

It was going to be quite hot today, so Jinora had decided to keep her promise and wear a lovely blue summer dress and stylish flats. She was putting the finishing touches on her outfit when she heard the bell ring. That was definitely Kai, and she wasn't there to open the door.

(Fuck.) Her room was in the far corner of the house, meaning that no way in hell could she make it to the front door before someone else.

"Let it be Mom... Let it be Mom..." Jinora whispered to herself as she made her way through the house as quick as she could, but it just wasn't meant to be.

Right before she made it though, she heard the door open. As it turns out, it was actually her father who was letting Kai in, and even from the side, Jinora could see the surprise on his face as he saw Kai standing there, looking fantastic in his jacket. "Ah, Mr. Gyatso, nice to meet you," he said, holding out his hand.

-"Umm... Likewise," Tenzin said, unable to shake the daze.

"Kai!" Jinora exclaimed, trying to get their attention.

He stepped inside, finally getting a good look at her. "Wow..." Kai said, a smile growing on his face. "You look beautiful."

A faint blush crept over Jinora's cheeks. "Thanks. Want to meet the rest of my family?"

-"That's what I'm here for."

Her father wouldn't be able to tell, but Jinora was. Over the months, she had found her way to the inside of his defenses. He was nervous as hell, and what he was showing was all an act. She pressed a quick and chaste kiss on his cheek, and then pulled him into the living room, ready to meet everyone else. It was just going to be tea for now, and maybe Kai and Jinora were going to head out afterwards, depending on how it would go.

When they got there, the first thing Pema did was eye Kai up, and couldn't help but an appreciative nod as she took in his appearance. (That worked precisely as planned.)

-"Well, don't you look handsome," she quickly commented. "I'm Pema, Jinora's mother."

-"I figured," Kai said, shaking her hand. "Kai Fong."

"Anyway, that's Meelo and Rohan," Jinora continued, quickly pulling him away and pointing out her two little brothers. "And you already know Ikki, at least from passing."

Her little sister was eyeing him up suspiciously. "Where's your jacket? And your piercing?"

-"What piercing?" he replied before turning back to back to Jinora to give her a wink. (This was going to be fun.)

-"The one you always have in your eyebrow! And you always wear a leather jacket, where has that gone?"

Kai just played along. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

-"Ikki, it's not nice to say things like that about people," her father piped up.

Ikki looked devastated, much to Jinora's satisfaction. "I... But... He..." At that point, she realized she wasn't going to win this one, so she just shut her mouth again and turned back to her phone.

-"How about we sit down?" Pema suggested, and they all sat down on the two sofas, Jinora next to Kai, obviously. "Kai, would you like some tea?"

He didn't have to think long. "Sure, thanks."

-"Jinora, could you give me a hand?" her mother sweetly asked.

Jin almost blurted out 'as long as there are witnesses', but caught that just in time. "Sure." As she walked out, Kai started showing some interest in what Rohan was doing, so that was going to end up fine for now.

Jinora started pouring a cup of tea for everyone, when her mother brought up the elephant in the room. "This was all you, wasn't it?"

A light blush crept over her face. "Well... not _all_ me." Pema raised a skeptical eyebrow to that. "Okay, the clothes were, but I can't make him be good with Rohan. That's all him."

-"I'll be honest with you, Jinora, I think it's sweet that he's trying."

"It is."

They soon stepped out with tea and cake for all those interested, and Jinora took her seat again next to Kai. She could even swear there was a hint of a smile on her father's face, given the interactions she missed.

Jinora was loving this. Everything was going exactly the way she had planned. His initial appearance had thrown every prejudice her parents had out the window, and from what she could tell, they were actually warming up to him.

Of course she should have seen that as a warning sign. She might as well have thrown the wrench in the works herself.

-"Hey, what's that tattoo behind your ear?" Rohan asked out loud as he walked behind the sofa Kai was sitting on. Jinora closed her eyes in defeat, because that had just undone everything. Her brother probably didn't mean anything by it, but was just curious. It was the only tattoo Kai had that wasn't covered by his clothes, and wasn't even visible in a normal conversation, and yet Rohan had managed to find it.

Her father was quick to turn his smile into a frown and raise an eyebrow. "Tattoo?"

Kai took a deep breath, knowing where this was going to lead. "It means 'stand', in Mandarin. I thought it was important to remind myself and everyone else of that."

Jinora basically held her breath, but it seemed that neither one was buying this. "And how many tattoos do you have?" Tenzin quickly asked.

-"Four."

-"FOUR?!" her father exclaimed in disbelief. (Yep. This was going to be a disaster. At least they tried.)

That thought was scarily accurate. Both of her parents basically grilled him on every little scrap of what Jinora had told them over the years in her surprisingly effective smear campaign. It definitely got under her skin quite quickly, but much to her surprise, Kai was being fairly blasé about it, almost like he didn't care. He just sat there, answering her parents' questions, though Jinora did notice that he was bending the truth a little left and right to leave her out.

-"And Jinora also mentioned that you have already been arrested three times," Pema finally brought up. It was the one she'd been waiting for.

-"I have," Kai admitted. "Never charged though, as they were only 'minor offenses' and posed no risk to anyone."

Ikki had also joined the action, because this was her chance to score a few free hits against her sister. "So the public intoxication the whole school heard about last year was nothing?"

-"Intoxication? Are you trying to get my daughter drunk?" Tenzin asked, clearly being less and less pleased with this as the conversation went on.

"That's really presumptuous," Jinora came to Kai's defense. She was quickly getting sick of this. "He's not making me do anything, and besides, you heard him, nothing stuck!"

-"How is it not a real charge when it could have?"

-"They took me to the police station, because a few of my friends were drunk. I had to take a breathalyzer test, which didn't do anything, because I was under the legal limit and even if I wasn't, I wasn't driving or anything."

It was briefly silent after Kai's admission, but Jinora knew it wouldn't last. "And the other two?" her mother asked. (Goddammit.)

-"Trespassing. One of them, I'll admit, was my fault, the other was bull..." Jinora quickly elbowed him in the side before he could finish that. "Nonsense, because the plot of land was sold a week earlier and the owner hadn't put up signs yet, so they couldn't even charge us."

-"So it's someone else's fault. How surprising."

"Dad!" Jinora immediately protested. "That is really unfair and you know it."

Tenzin leaned back. "I think it's time that you go, Kai. I've heard enough."

He sighed and began to stand, but Jinora stopped him. "No. Kai, sit down. This is ridiculous. Kai has been nothing but polite and fair, even though you have practically been waterboarding him for the last half hour. He neatly dressed himself, and yes, that was my idea, but he still went with it, and came here in good faith. Ikki is using this to make me look bad, Mom is barely interested in listening to what he has to say, and Dad, you already made up your mind last week when you found out about us. And all awhile, the only one here making _any_ effort to make this work is Kai! You know what, fuck this. This has all been a gigantic waste of time." Jinora paced off to the garden, slamming the kitchen door on an eerily silent living room.

She was fuming. Jin had completely taken over, ranting against her parents and once again mouthing off in front of everyone this time. She sat down on the swing set, which yeah, she was far too old for, but it was comfortable and it was in the sun.

After a few minutes, she saw Kai emerge from the back door as well and sat down on the swing next to her. "How come I never noticed you have freckles on your shoulders?" he asked, running his fingers over them.

Jinora chuckled. "Because I don't wear things that expose my shoulders very often. Plus, they get more noticeable when I'm in the sun."

Kai reached over and took her hand. "You should. I think they're cute."

"Really?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "I don't like them. And you think everything about me is cute."

-"Wouldn't be dating you if I didn't."

After this, it fell silent between them for a bit. "I really screwed this up for us, didn't I?" Jinora asked.

Kai sighed. "I dunno. We probably never stood much of a chance to begin with. You pretty much said it; they'd already made up their minds."

"That was before I launched into a tirade against them. It can't have done us any good."

-"Don't be so pessimistic," Pema said, making them both look up.

"Mom," Jinora said, quickly untangling her hand from Kai's. (No need to get mushy in front of her parents.) "How much of that did you hear?"

-"Plenty. Kai, could I have a moment with my daughter?"

He looked over to Jinora, who nodded. "Sure, I'll wait out front," he said before walking off.

When Kai was out of earshot, Pema spoke up again. "Jinora, I'm sorry. You were right, we didn't give him a fair chance." She paused for a moment. "But can you really blame us?"

"Yeah, yeah, because I bad-mouthed him for so long, we've been over this," she sighed.

-"That's not what I mean." This actually made Jinora look up in surprise, because she didn't know where this was going. "Your father and I are worried that he'll have a bad influence on you, and it does look that way. You lied to us for so long, something you never did before, you're constantly fighting with Ikki, mouthing off against us, and it goes on. That does paint a certain image, and the timing points at Kai."

Jinora took a moment to think on this, because her mother had a point, even if that wasn't what was really going on. "Maybe, but it's not true. Me falling out with Ikki began before I started dating Kai, and even if it hadn't, he's been a moderating force on that. I have the texts to prove it." She suddenly got a bright idea. "Heck, Kai has been coming around since we started dating. He's more punctual, his grades are climbing, all that good stuff. It's more like I'm having an influence on him than vice versa."

Pema had to let this sink in, but then she nodded. "Okay. I'll talk to your father, make him see your side more. But I want your honesty, Jinora. No more lies."

This was a good offer, because Jinora didn't want to do that anyway. (No more than she had to because of the time she spent on her skateboard, but still.) "Okay, I can do that. Thanks, Mom."

* * *

 _Just a word to the wise for all guys reading this: you look better in a suit jacket. The one condition is that it's properly fitted, but if it is, it makes you look taller if you're short, broader if you're skinny, and slimmer if you're fat. Can't go wrong._

 _Also, if you're wondering why I'm still pretty slow even though I'm done with school for the year... Let's just say my bank account hasn't come out of the Steam Summer Sales unscathed._


	24. All In the Family

-"Jinora, we need to talk," Pema's voice came from behind her.

With a loud sigh, Jinora turned around, already suspecting what this was going to be about. "I take it this is about Kai?"

-"Close enough. Have you had sex with him yet?"

"MOM!" she called out, a furious blush racing over her face. "That's kind of private, wouldn't you say?"

Pema obstinately folded her arms. "We can either do this now between the two of us or at the dinner table with everyone else. Your choice."

The only thing Jinora could imagine being worse than talking about this with her mother was talking about it with her father. "Fine, we haven't. Need me to go into detail about how much clothes we were still wearing?"

-"That's not the point of this, I don't intend to slam you or talk down to you. But I am your mother, and it's my job to worry about you. So, are you on birth control?"

It should be noted that the red color in her cheeks wasn't really subsiding. "No, I'm not. Like I said, we haven't... done it yet."

A small smile appeared on her mother's face. "My point exactly. Jinora, this is not something you want to wait out. An accident happens quickly, no matter how careful you are."

Jinora wasn't convinced. "How irresponsible do you think I am? Or Kai, for that matter. We're not stupid, you know."

-"Precisely what I was hoping for, but being safe goes both ways. Jinora, I want you to start taking the pill."

"Are you being serious here?"

-"I am. I'd rather take you to the pharmacy and admit that you are growing up than take you to an abortion clinic and have you make a decision that only has bad options." Jinora was about to protest, but her mother beat her to it. "You're a teenage girl, and I know what that's like. I was one once. What's more, you're a teenage girl with a _very_ handsome boyfriend. All it takes is that we leave you alone for an hour, and I don't want us to be the kind of parents who hover over your shoulder all day long to keep you from doing something like that. It's all part of growing up."

Jinora eyed her mother up suspiciously. Something about this didn't feel right. "Why are you doing this? You went from treating Kai like he's a nuisance to get rid of to... _this_ pretty quickly."

Pema sighed. "I know. I did something thinking and came to the conclusion that your earlier assessment was right. I didn't give Kai a chance and had basically already made up my mind, just like you said. It's not fair, not to him and not to you. Trying to balance the scales, I suppose."

It did make Jinora smile, a little, because that sounded more like her mother. "Thanks, Mom."

-"You're welcome. Now, I trust you know how to use a condom properly?"

Jinora smacked her head on her desk. This was going to be one _long_ conversation.

* * *

"And for Christ's sake, Korra, she wouldn't shut up! I don't think I have ever felt so awkward around my own mother."

Not that Korra cared very much, she was literally laughing so hard that tears were rolling down her cheeks.

"Stop it! What can you even do about something like that?"

It only made Korra laugh harder. "Nothing, that's the problem. You know, there are benefits to being a lesbian," she said, finally having calmed down enough to give a sensible answer.

Jinora raised an eyebrow. "I thought you were bisexual?"

-"People place too much value in labels. Anyway, yeah, there are benefits."

"But you dated Mako too. How'd you do things then?"

Korra shrugged. "I was on the pill, but it wasn't very comfortable for me. I kept taking them for a while after I broke up with Mako, but stopped with them later. I was going to switch to a different method, but now that I'm dating Asami, it's not really necessary."

It was a decent point, but that still left the one big question for Jinora. "What do you think I should do?"

-"I think your mom is right," Korra simply answered. "Better to get ahead of this than let it become a problem. Besides, you can't tell me that you _haven't_ been thinking about Kai that way. He's way too hot for that."

Jinora blushed, mostly because it was true. "A few times, maybe. But nothing happened! Hands stayed above the belt the entire time."

The older girl chuckled at this. "Hey, I'm not here to judge, just asking. By the way, where is he?"

"I don't know. He said he'd be coming tonight." The words hadn't left her mouth or the sound of a revving engine drew their attention, plastering a giddy smile on her face.

As soon as Korra noticed, she rolled her eyes. "Please do everyone a favor and keep your PDA's to a minimum," she sighed.

"Oh come on, Kai and I aren't that bad. At least we're better than Bopal over there," Jinora came to her own defense, pointing at Bolin and Opal, making out right out in the open.

-"That's a pretty low bar to clear," Korra scoffed.

"Good point. Still, I have a boyfriend to go and greet, and you have a happy couple to pry apart," she smiled as she backed away. "Glad I'm not you!"

Jinora chuckled as she watched Korra flip her off, but did quickly skated over to where Kai probably was. Seeing that slanted smirk again under those bright green eyes really lifted her spirits, and she wasted no time to wrap her arms around his neck a press a long kiss on his lips. They didn't quite go all-out because they were in public, but one little kiss wouldn't hurt anyone.

-"Hey, babe," he greeted her when they split apart.

Jinora playfully punched him in the shoulder for that. "You're really sticking with that, aren't you?"

Kai just smiled. "Did no one ever tell you that you don't get to choose your own nicknames?"

"No, they didn't." She kicked her board up and tucked it under her arm before reaching down and linked hands with Kai.

They walked over to the halfpipe, where Korra had also managed to drag Bolin and Opal to the top as well. Jinora and Kai followed them, and a smile appeared on his face as he saw that Opal had just lit up a cigarette as she watched Bolin and Korra tackle the halfpipe. "Hey, Ope. Mind if I bum one?" Kai nodded to Opal.

-"Forgot your own?" she asked as she stuck her pack out to him.

He grinned as he lit it. "Nope, this is just my way of making my pack last longer."

-"Not sure if that's cheap or brilliant," Opal chuckled.

-"Don't worry, you'll get one from me next."

Jinora enjoyed this little display. She knew that technically she should be against Kai smoking, and Opal for that matter, but she just couldn't bring herself to do so. There was something comforting about the smell, probably because it reminded her of Kai and a place where she could truly be free. Ironically enough, he was the only person she didn't have any secrets for.

Just as she was about to ask if it was her turn, Korra rode back up to the platform where they were standing, making an elegant dismount right in front of them. "Ah, guys, you really have to do this here?"

Both Kai and Opal shrugged simultaneously. "Where else are we going to do it if not outside?" he immediately asked.

Korra sighed, because she knew this was a losing battle. "How about 'not at all'? Come on, Jinora, you're supposed to be on my side here."

"Ehh... It's his call. Plus, I don't actually mind the smell all that much. At least, not when it's on Kai," she continued, after which Kai wrapped an arm around her shoulder a pressed a kiss on Jinora's cheek.

It made Korra roll her eyes and stick a finger down her throat, pretending to gag. "Christ, and my folks say me and Asami have it bad..."

Jinora chuckled. "Well, ranked worst to best, I'd say one, two, three," she said, pointing to Opal, herself, and Korra at the right times. "Anyway, my turn." Before Korra had the chance to protest, Jinora dropped into the halfpipe to try and get her moves right.

And she had to admit, this evening, most people there taking turns in the halfpipe, the slightly too loud rap music, the smell of smoke all around them, it was comfortable. At a certain point, Jinora felt that right here, with these people whom she didn't even know a year ago, she felt at home.

* * *

 _I know it's been a while, but I do have a reason: I've been working on an upcoming smut chapter for this story. That paired with the smut chapter I'm working on for What Happens In Vegas means I have two extended scenes in the works that I am really anxious to get right and that, by all indications (so far, the one for this story would already be the longest one by a mile and I'm not even done yet), are going to be lengthy, means I am working slowly on them. I am pretty pleased with the progress, but like I said, it is slow, and it's not going to be anything like the only other Kainora smut I have written so far in All Are Equal. It's going to be driven by a desire for intimacy and not guilt (read the story for context), so yeah, get ready for that. Might be one or two short chapters in between this and that though, so keep an eye out. As to this chapter... it's not my favorite, and I can't help that sinking feeling that it shows, but there are parts that I wanted to address and wouldn't have otherwise. Later!_


	25. Mending Fences

Jinora knew that if there was any hope for salvaging her friendship with Fen, she was going to have to be the one to swallow her pride, and probably soon. Final exams were coming up, and Jinora knew that it would be better to try and fix it sooner rather than later.

Ultimately, she spotted her best friend (at least once upon a time she was) sitting on one of the benches outside of the school by herself, and knew that this was the best time to try something. "Hey, Fen."

Luckily, she didn't turn away immediately. "Hey, Jinora." She briefly let it fall silent. "Here to lie to me some more?"

Jinora sighed, because that was precisely the response she was afraid of, mostly because it was precisely the response she deserved. "No, actually, I'm not. I'm here to apologize."

Fen raised a curious eyebrow, but at the same time, gestured her to sit down and continue. "I am sorry for lying to you. I never wanted to do it, and trust me when I say that it didn't feel good doing it."

-"And yet you kept it up for months. Do you know what it feels like, that even your best friend won't trust you anymore?"

This actually gave Jinora pause for thought, because Fen was right on that one. "No, I don't. I put my fear above our friendship, and the worst part of it is, it was all for nothing."

-"What do you mean?"

"Fen, I kept my relationship with Kai from you, and from everyone else for that matter, because I was afraid of what would happen when everyone found out, most of all my parents. The rivalry between me and Kai isn't exactly a secret, and I was worried that my parents would disapprove of us."

Fen raised an eyebrow. "Did they?"

"Well, yes, that's the problem, but they weren't even hugely disapproving. So it was all for nothing. Even if I had told you, you'd probably tease me for a week about it, and then move on because we are actually serious about it."

It fell silent after this. Fen was trying to work out the implications of it all, while Jinora was just hoping against hope that she would take it well. "Okay, answer me this, and I would appreciate it if you would tell me the truth," Fen started. "I can understand why you wouldn't tell your parents. I know you've been shit-talking Kai for so long to them, and they don't have their own opinion on him. That part I get. But why wouldn't you tell _me_?"

Another question she was afraid of, mostly because the truth wouldn't exactly make it look like Jinora's faith in her best friend was bursting through the ceiling. Still, the only alternative were more lies, which was what landed them here in the first place. "Because I was worried you wouldn't keep it to yourself. Not even with malice," she hastily added. "Just... you let it slip out, and then the genie's out of the bottle."

-"Wow, thanks for the vote of confidence," Fen sarcastically said, clearly not pleased.

"There is another reason," Jinora continued, knowing that she was on slightly more solid ground here. "During that English project that basically kicked us off, I... I found out a couple of things about Kai that he really didn't want to share. With anyone. Even after we got together, it took him months to trust me enough to tell me the full extent, and he made me promise not to tell anyone. And this isn't just 'oh, how embarrassing would it be if my parents find out', this is actually serious. People are depending on those secrets to stay secret."

Fen actually thought this over, because Jinora was being completely sincere there. "So you're saying you did it to protect him?"

Jinora sighed. "Partially, yes, but I admit, mostly to save my own skin. I am done with hiding it and in reality, it was my idea to keep it a secret and that got out of hand. I was the coward there, because Kai was more partial to just telling everyone."

-"I'm not angry at him, he isn't my best friend."

The fact that she used present tense there made Jinora perk up, and did fan the flame of hope a little bit. "What do I need to do to make it up to you? Do you still want to slap me in the face, or maybe something a bit less painful?"

Fen chuckled. "That was mostly because I was angry at you. Like I said, right now, I just want to hear the truth."

"That's fair enough. Minus the one thing I just mentioned, but that isn't for my sake, it's for Kai's."

-"Okay, then start with this: why now?"

Jinora sighed. "I didn't want to go into our final exams with us not talking to each other. You've been with me for so long, I really don't want that to fail because of my stupidity right before we finish high school."

Fen nodded. "No, neither do I," she softly admitted. That was probably the whole reason she was actually hearing Jinora out in the first place, so it wasn't really surprising.

"Tell you what: remember that Wolfbats concert you were talking about a few weeks ago?"

This seemed to confuse her. "Yeah?"

Jinora smiled, because it was exactly the reaction she was hoping for. "I know someone on the inside track who said he might have a few tickets left. I'll see if he still has them, and we'll go to together after our finals. What do you say?" (Thank goodness for Bolin's job at the hall.)

-"I would kiss you if you could make that happen."

"Don't kiss me. I have a boyfriend now."

Fen chuckled. "Speaking of which..."

"He's a great kisser, don't bother."

-"Actually, I was going to ask how he is in bed."

"Fen!"


	26. Full House

_If you're confused on some of the names, it might be worth going back to chapter 18 for reference._

* * *

It was a strange feeling, she had to admit. Jinora was now done with high school. Today had been her very last final exam, meaning that when she would walk out of here, she'd do so for the last time as a student. Probably the only time she'd be coming back here was for the graduation itself.

And even though Jinora did feel like she was kind of done with this place and that it was time for her to move on, there were also a lot of things she liked here. The most obvious one was currently banging his head against the locker next to her. "This is so unfair," Kai sighed. "Why are you already done with exams but I still have one left?"

"Because I didn't choose French to hit on girls." There was a slight chastising undertone to the way she said, which Kai rolled his eyes at.

-"Come on, I haven't done that since we got together."

Jinora smiled. "That's a pretty weak defense. You've got three years of karma still catching up with you."

-"Worst part is that I'm going to blow that exam so hard, so why even bother?"

"Because you still need to keep up your average. You know it's not brilliant to start with, so you don't need to fail your final exam completely."

Kai banged his head on the locker again. "I know, I know. Shit, why are you always right?"

"You knew that when you started dating me," Jinora smirked, which earned her a well-deserved 'are you kidding me'-look from her boyfriend. "Alright, I'll make it up to you: you go home now and study for your final exam, and then when you're done as well, I'll take you out to dinner. Don't think we've ever really done that."

Kai smiled. "No, that was out first date, remember? Where I bought you dinner in exchange for your painkillers."

Jinora was less than impressed. "Does that count as a date? We didn't really agree to start until after that."

-"Close enough for me. Say, want to go across the street and get a cup of coffee? Could do with some."

She threw him an annoyed look. "Study, and then we'll talk about coffee."

-"Ugghh, fine," Kai groaned.

Jinora wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed a long but soft kiss on his lips. "And that's the last one you'll get until tomorrow," she smirked and promptly backed away from him.

Kai was not pleased. "Oh come on, this is blackmail!"

"Definitely is. Good luck!"

* * *

Jinora was actually a little nervous for tonight. It wasn't so much that she called in a favor with Asami to have her pull some strings at the rather fancy restaurant for their reservation, that was manageable. Jinora had put on a nice green summer dress with polka dots, fancy without being stiff, and now she was about to go pick up Kai.

But the real reason she was nervous was because this really was going to be their first time going out to a proper dinner together, even if Kai was right, that burger thing did kind of count. But for real this time.

She pulled up outside of apartment building in her mother's car, she thought her father's was far too big for the two of them anyway, and texted Kai she was there.

 **Jinora:** _Waiting outside_

 **Kai:** _Want to come inside? Nearly done_

This struck Jinora as somewhat strange, because Kai was still reluctant at having her in his house, mostly because of his foster parents. Still, if this was a sign he was getting more comfortable with that, she'd take it. Either that, or there was something else going on.

Someone buzzed her through, and the hallway was as loud as ever, which was to be expected in a building like this. She knocked on the door and a girl who Jinora would estimate to be about nine opened up. "Yes?"

"Umm, hi... I'm here to pick up Kai?"

-"Oh, you're Jinora!" the girl excitedly exclaimed. She threw the door all the way open and pulled Jinora in by her hand. "You know, Kai was right, you are pretty."

She was a little bit flattered by this, but the girl's excitement did worry her a little bit. If she'd be received with the same enthusiasm Shila had shown her last time, it wouldn't go well.

-"Jian!" someone called out. A girl about her own age came walking out of the kitchen. "Oh, wait, are you Kai's girlfriend?"

"I am," Jinora said, finally looking around. The strong smell of smoke was still everywhere, as was the worn furniture and yellowed wallpaper. Neron was in front of the TV with another boy, this one about 14, she'd estimate, and all four of them looked quite surprisingly good.

-"Hey, babe," she suddenly heard Kai say, drawing her full attention. He was wearing his white button-up again, and had his suit jacket loosely slung over his shoulder, giving him the perfectly confident smart casual look. "You look beautiful," he said when he was a little closer, and pressed a quick kiss on her lips.

-"Blegh, get a room," Jian said, and walked off to join her brothers in front of the TV.

Kai chuckled. "We won't be long. Want me to run you down with everyone?"

"Would be nice to have names with all the faces," Jinora admitted.

-"Right, well, you already know Neron, that's Jian, and Shen," he said, pointing to third boy in the room, who gave Jinora a disinterested wave. "That's Kayla, and... Jayla?"

Another girl came walking out of the kitchen as well, this one smoking a cigarette, and it was obvious that they were twins. They were like two drops of water, not really helped by the fact that they both had the same length of hair and the same make-up. "How can you ever tell them apart?" Jinora chuckled.

-"We get that a lot. Jayla smokes, I don't," Kayla quickly answered. "And yes, we're still fighting over which one of us was planned and which one of us got stuck with the stupid name because our parents were too lazy to think of two."

Kai chuckled again. "Trust me, they still do, though it stopped being violent a few years back. Anyway, Kayla, I'm trusting you to be the responsible one tonight. There's chicken and veggies in the fridge, you're going to cook that, right?"

-"I was planning to, if I want to eat."

Kai nodded. "Well, if it's not enough, I still think there's still some from yesterday in the freezer. Also, make sure Shen actually does his homework tonight," he said, emphasizing that last part towards his little brother.

Jinora was following this whole exchange in sheer awe. All of a sudden, she felt really, really guilty about making fun of and belittling him for never having his own homework done. He was too busy getting everyone here to do it.

-"I know, don't worry about it," Kayla smiled as she saw Kai slipping into his jacket. "You got him to wear that, right?" she asked Jinora.

"I did, yes."

-"Good. Kai, from now on, you have to listen to her when it comes to fashion, because that looks great on you."

Kai rolled his eyes, but Jinora nodded. "Thank you. Come on, we should go. Our table is waiting for us."

On the way over, she was doubtful of how to really address that, or hell, even what to address first. "Does this happen a lot?"

-"What, us having to cook for ourselves?"

"Yeah."

Kai sighed. "It does. Shila has drunken herself into a stupor again, so I knew it was up to me. She's going to be out for the rest of the night. It's lucky the twins are old enough now to take care of themselves, otherwise I would have had to cancel."

Jinora smiled as she took his hand and squeezed it slightly. "I can honestly say that I'm very impressed. But hey, this is our happy night. No more downbeat stories, okay?"

-"Deal."

They made it to the restaurant soon enough, which looked very nice. Kai visibly gulped, because he immediately thought this place was way too expensive, which he had already said in advance. Jinora assured him it wasn't going to be a problem, her mother had slipped her a little bit of money to help pay the bill, a sort of reward for working her butt off for the past two weeks of finals.

When they were seated, a waiter soon arrived with two glasses of champagne. "I don't think we ordered this," Kai hesitantly said.

-"Courtesy of the lady in the corner," he said as he placed the glasses in front of them.

Jinora and Kai both looked up to see who he meant, and smiled when they saw Asami sitting there with (presumably) her father, raising her glass of wine and shooting them a quick wink. "To us being done with high school, and for more good things to come," Jinora smiled while raising her own glass.

-"I'll drink to that," Kai smiled back.

* * *

The dinner sadly _flew_ by, Jinora was responsible enough to only take a few sips of the champagne because she still had to drive home, but it was amazing. The food was delicious, and Kai was a perfect gentleman throughout.

They were now on the way back, and it was with a little bit of a disappointment that Jinora pulled into a parking spot outside of Kai's place. She had ended up at the far end of the lot, because everyone was home by now. She shut off the engine for some reason, and it kind of fell quiet between them.

-"Hey, thanks for tonight, Jin," Kai said after a bit.

"You're welcome. But you share in the credit too. I had a great time." She glanced down at their loosely linked hands, and smiled as Kai clasped it a little tighter. He leaned in, and pressed a soft kiss on her lips, and she was unwilling to let it go.

Their kiss soon intensified, with Kai cupping her face and quickly undoing her seatbelt to allow her some more freedom of movement. In fact, feeling his hand on her bare thigh didn't bother Jinora in the slightest, until she remembered where they were.

Kai did push his hand a little further up, slipping a little bit under the fabric of her dress, and that's when she decided it was too far. "Kai, wait..." she breathed after breaking away. He immediately retracted his hand, and leaned a little back. "Not here," Jinora sighed. "Not like this."

He nodded. "I get it."

"One day, when we have some proper time and a place to..." she hesitated, but Kai didn't make her say it.

-"Hey, don't worry about it. I'll be ready when you are."

Jinora smiled and pressed a quick kiss on his lips. "Soon, I promise. Now you get inside and make sure everyone is in bed."

Kai chuckled. "I will. Good night, babe."

* * *

 _I wonder what's next..._

 _Happy New Year, everyone._


	27. Virginity

**This is the chapter where this story changes from T to M. Continue reading at your own risk.**

* * *

And then to think the evening had started out so innocently, Jinora thought as she rinsed the shampoo out of her hair with an incessant grin on her face that just wouldn't go away.

* * *

Her parents had gone to a cousin's birthday, a cousin who apparently hated Jinora, so that was as good an excuse as any to let her stay at home. Plus, she didn't want to be stuck in a car for an hour with Ikki on their way to Aunt Madani.

Of course, item one on the to do-list was to call Kai over, and he didn't need much persuasion. (Well, she didn't call him. "And don't you call Kai over," her father said on a warning tone. "No, Dad, I won't call him over," she replied. Buuuut she didn't say anything about _texting_ him to come over.)

After that, it was simply a case of putting on a movie while cuddling on the couch, perfectly innocent.

But yeah, the movie was a little dull, and since there was no one at home to stop them, they quickly decided that making out was a more interesting way to spend the time.

Making out with Kai was not something Jinora would easily tire of. Even though this wasn't their first time this week they had the chance to do so, tonight was a little special, because she knew they had all the time in the world. The movie had been reduced to so much white noise in the background by now.

Jinora hadn't even bothered with her hoodie because it was warm and there were better methods of warming up either way. She was down to a modest pair of shorts, a red tank top, and her bra underneath it, and was comfortable with the knowledge that Kai thought she looked good.

Kai was in a similar state of undress, being down to a simple black T-shirt and his jeans himself.

They had made themselves very comfortable on the couch once more, Jinora on top. Even though she didn't really mind Kai being on top, this was kind of the way she preferred it.

Normally, Kai was fairly apprehensive about where he let his hands wander, and this was something Jinora definitely appreciated, that he was cautious with exploring new territories, always making sure she was comfortable with it too. Now though, he was being slightly more forward, letting his hand slide under the hem of her top.

Not that she minded in the least. On the contrary, feeling his slightly rough hands caressing her back was great. They continued to kiss, letting their tongues battle for dominance. (Kai was currently winning.)

Everything changed when he slipped his hands up Jinora's side, not really thinking it over, and then he hit the underside of her bra. Kai immediately broke away with an apologetic look on his face, but Jinora begged to differ. "What's the matter?" she asked, a slight hint of seduction in her voice.

-"I... I don't want to... you know, push you too far," he stammered.

She took a deep breath, because most of her was nervous as hell to say this, but the other part thought she was ready for it. "And what if I told you... I'm ready to take the next step?"

His expression changed to one of surprise. "Are you... Are you sure?"

Jinora sighed, because that was kind of the question she had been afraid of. "I - I think I am." She took a deep breath. "But if there is one thing I'm sure about, it's that if I'm gonna do this with anyone, it's with you."

Kai smiled. "Sounds good to me." He pressed a quick kiss on her lips. "Bedroom?"

"Definitely. We might not have all the time in the world though, my parents will be back at some point." That was a risk factor, but not enough of one to give up.

-"Not a problem," he assured her, and pushed them off from the couch.

Jinora smiled and linked their hands together, pulling him towards the hallway. "Wait," she said halfway up the stairs, suddenly realizing that she was almost forgetting something. "Do we have protection?"

Fortunately, it seemed that Kai was ahead of her on that one. "Just a sec." In three steps, he was back down to the coatrack and pulled his leather jacket from between the others. He took it back with him upstairs, and when he reached Jinora, took a condom out of the pocket, showing to her that he actually wasn't totally caught off guard by this.

"You've been planning for this?" she asked while raising an eyebrow.

Kai just shrugged. "Well, I'm not gonna lie to you, the thought has crossed my mind a few times. And if there's anything getting arrested three times has taught me, it's that fortune doesn't favor the brave, it favors the prepared."

It made Jinora laugh, helping to ease some of the tension that was building. As they made it into her room, she was at once both nervous and excited and they were both still fully dressed. She couldn't imagine what it would be like if they were actually naked. Good lord. A second wave of nerves came over Jinora as she suddenly realized that she'd be undressing in front of someone else. She hadn't done that since her mother stopped helping her shower and that was years ago.

-"Babe, are you okay?" Kai asked, picking up on her nerves.

Jinora took a deep breath. "I think so. Just... I guess I'm just nervous. I've never done this before. Gone this far."

He just smiled. "Neither have I. We're in the same boat here."

"Are you serious?"

Kai's smile kept on growing. "Between my reputation and my looks, I know it's hard to believe, but it's true." Jinora gave him a playful shove as a punishment, but he quickly rebounded, wrapping his arms around her lower back. "Jin, I promise you: I've never felt like this about anyone before. And I wanted it to be with a special someone, say... you."

"That's really sweet," she said, hopping up to press a quick kiss on his lips. (Damn you, short genetics.) "So where do we start?" she asked with a little bit of trepidation.

-"I say we start at the beginning."

"Which is...?"

Kai's typical slanted smirk came back to him as he took a step backwards and promptly took his shirt off, carelessly throwing it to the floor. Jinora had to both smile at his antics, but also admit to herself that she was a pleasantly surprised with how he looked. He was definitely fit, not necessarily sculpted, even though there was a hint of pecs shining through on his chest. Incidentally, that same chest brandished a shaded circle with a square hole in the middle on his left pec.

Cautiously, Jinora stepped forward with her hand raised up, gently tracing her finger over the tattoo. "So that's where it is."

-"You like it?"

"I do." She pushed them towards her bed, and for once, Jinora cursed herself for not pushing that double bed through, or at least a twin, which her parents had offered her. She put her hands on his shoulders, and pushed him down, before sitting down with one knee on either side of him, but also ran her hands over his back. His skin felt good under her fingertips, as she'd never had this kind of unrestricted access.

That was also about the point she realized she wanted the same thing from him. Kai's hands were currently tracing around the hem of her top, but she briefly broke away from him to whisper into his ear: "It's okay. I want it off." That was not something she needed to tell him twice, so he wasted no time pulling it up. Jinora in fact helped him along, putting her arms up so that he could easily remove it and toss the offending clothing aside. It left her in a simple green bra, and not even a very flattering one at that, but she didn't really care. Jinora quickly leaned back in to kiss him, relishing in the skin-on-skin contact they now had.

Then something strange happened. Kai shifted a little, almost as if he was trying to get away from her, but because he was kind of trapped, failed pretty badly. It took Jinora a moment to figure out, but when she felt his erection poke her in the hips, she smiled. "Well, well, well, Mr. Fong, are we getting excited?"

Kai started blushing furiously. "Sorry," he murmured.

"No need to be sorry, it's kind of the point of what we're doing here," she giggled.

-"Force of habit, I guess." He let out a loud groan as Jinora kept on giggling, and looked like he was about to say something, but then let himself fall onto his back. Big mistake. Because of her narrow bed, Kai slammed his head into the stone wall really hard. " **OW**! Motherfucker!" he loudly swore.

Jinora had to put a hand in front of her mouth to stop herself from laughing out loud, but she wasn't fooling anyone, especially someone who knew her as well as Kai did. "Oh my God, are you okay?" she asked, barely able to contain her laughs.

He just kept on rubbing his head. "That's gonna leave a bump," he said, looking at his hand to make sure he wasn't bleeding. "Don't worry, babe, I've been through worse."

"You sure?"

Kai smiled and grabbed her by her knees, threw her on her back and crawled on top her. "Trust me, I'm not going to give this up because of a bump."

Jinora quickly found herself relaxing into another kiss, feeling the intimacy. She reached down, determined to undo the first article of clothing she came across, which happened to be the button of Kai's jeans. He broke away from kissing her, staring her straight in the eyes. Damn, those impossibly green eyes were beautiful. But right now, they were more surprised than anything else, which was a good thing. Not a hint of protest though, so Jinora undid the button, and gave his pants the first push down.

He quickly finished the job for her, and while he was at it, also pulled off his socks, leaving him in just his boxers. Jinora decided she was overdressed now, and quickly shimmied out of her pants as well, leaving her in just her underwear. It did put a faint blush on her cheeks, being so barely dressed while being so close to someone else, but on the other hand, _damn_ , did she want to be close to him right now.

It was the perfect time to put herself on top, so she rolled over and made it so. Kai didn't seem to care very much, in fact, he seemed to take her hint quite well as he let his hands slide up over her back, but he broke away once again as his fingers hit the underside of her bra. "Is this okay?" he cautiously asked.

"Absolutely," Jinora smiled. "Mind taking it off for me?" Even though she was nervous, it didn't really matter, as it was clear that he was too. The blush on his cheeks hid absolutely nothing and she was reasonably certain she was the same, if not worse.

Then there was the elephant in the room: she wanted to test him. He probably wouldn't be able to do it in one go, making it funny, and if he was able to, more power to him.

-"Well, I'm not going to say no to that," Kai smirked, and let his fingers slide over the fabric until he hit the clasp of her bra.

And right from that moment, Jinora knew she was going to enjoy this. She could feel him pulling on the fabric in all the wrong ways, and was once again miserably failing at trying to contain her laughter. The worst part was that the more she laughed, the harder it became for him, and the antsier he got.

Ultimately, it ended with Jinora resting her forehead on Kai's chest as the tears of laughter were rolling down her face. Meanwhile, he became so frustrated that he threw his hands up and fell back with a loud groan, this time landing on the pillow, fortunately. "Oh, fuck it, this is impossible. I've always mocked guys who said that it was hard, but they were right. How can you walk around with a fucking Rubik's Cube on your back?"

Jinora chuckled. "It's only a single clasp, life could have been a lot harder for you."

-"Not filling me with confidence here, Jin."

She chuckled again, but also took a deep breath to calm herself down and guide him through it. It was his first time as well, of course he wasn't going to be an expert. "Alright, allow me to talk you through it, because you need to learn this. Right hand, look for the clasp, and grab it at the base." More patiently this time, he did precisely what she said. "Left hand on the other side... hold them flat and then just push them together."

He did, and Jinora felt really weird at the sensation. Much like she'd expected, she felt her bra loosen up considerably, which was kind of the point. But this did bring on a significant wave of nerves, because now that push came to shove, it was a lot harder. She had never exposed so much of herself to anyone, not even to Fen. They were both much to shy for that, and yet here she was, on top of Kai, only one move away from doing just that.

On the other hand, there was also a feeling of giddy excitement going through her. She really was going through with this, her first time, and it was a moment she was going to share with Kai. That she wanted to share with Kai.

Without saying a word, she sat up while Kai stayed on his back and her bra only hung loosely on her shoulders. The look in his eyes was hungry yet reassuring, telling her that if she wasn't certain, he wasn't going to make her go through with it. Ironically enough, this was exactly what made her certain enough to shrug the remaining fabric off, finally letting her bra slip down her arms.

-"Beautiful," Kai said, a huge smile growing on his face. He was looking, even though he wasn't touching yet, probably waiting for the explicit go-ahead.

Of course, none of this did much to calm the furious blush racing across Jinora's cheeks. "Really?"

-"Babe, I said it before: us men, we love all boobs, including the smaller ones." He sat up as well, pulling her into another kiss, this one causing a flash of heat to go through her as her nipples rubbed over Kai's chest. "You're cute and perky, and shouldn't be ashamed of that. _I_ certainly like them."

Jinora smiled as she lowered herself onto her back, and having learned her lesson from Kai, she did so gently. "Well, you can touch. It's not a strip club."

Kai chuckled as he leaned in. "I'm definitely gonna take you up on that offer." Gently, he let one hand slip up her side, with a slight bit of hesitation as he reached the underside of her breast, but the twinkle in Jinora's eyes got him to continue. The way he flicked a thumb over her nipple felt _so_ much better than when she was still wearing a bra, that much was certain.

In fact, what she wasn't quite expecting was the flash of heat it sent between her legs, and that felt good. If there was one thing Jinora was certain of, it was that she wanted to feel a lot more of that before the night was over. Kai was slowly letting go of his idea that he needed to be a little cautious, because Jinora wanted this just as much as he did.

"Kai..." she breathed between kisses, her arousal growing fast. He moved down, pressing soft kisses on her jaw, her neck, her collarbone, before ultimately ending up on her chest. Here, he finally got a bit more hesitant, even though his hand was still on her breast. He looked up to meet Jinora's eyes, who smiled at him. "Don't you dare stop what you're doing," she chuckled.

This gave him the confidence to keep going, and Jinora did notice her breathing became a little faster as his kisses closed in on her nipple. When Kai locked his lips actually around it though, she gasped and bit her lower lip, because _damn_ , did it feel good. She wasn't huge on playing with herself, but when she did, her nipples were an easy target to involve, mostly because it did work in getting her aroused, and Kai was in the process of proving that.

Not that there was a lot of room for improvement there, her state right now was _way_ beyond turned on, but still, progress is progress.

Kai's hands were already wandering further down though, and it wasn't long before they hit the hem of her panties, her last item of clothing, and this did bring back some of her nerves, and not the kind Jinora wanted to feel. She shuddered, and Kai picked up on this. "Are you okay?"

Jinora took a deep breath. "Yeah, I'm... I'm fine. Just nervous."

In no time at all, he was back up her body, now face to face. "You know you don't have to do this, right?"

"Of course I know, but I want to. I _do_ want to."

Kai thought for a moment and pressed a quick kiss on her lips. "Tell you what: why don't we do it at the same time? Then it'll at least be awkward for both of us."

Jinora chuckled. "Okay, you have yourself a deal." Reluctantly, she rolled off of him so that they were side by side on the narrow bed, both on their backs. They looked over into each other's eyes, and after taking a deep breath, Jinora nodded. "Ready?"

-"Ready."

And with that, they both went for it. Jinora didn't pay any attention to Kai for the moment, deciding just to focus on herself and slip out of her last remaining garment without any fuss. She tossed it aside, and by the time she turned back to face Kai again, he was done as well. She let her eyes roam down his body while he did the same, taking in the unbroken expanse of dark skin now lying beside her.

And it was pretty much without doubt that Jinora liked what she saw. Sure, he had already been down to his underwear a minute ago, but there was something about it now that his colorful underwear was out of the way that made all the difference.

The weird thing was that even though they were now both as red as a firetruck, Jinora didn't feel uncomfortable per se. It was really hard to describe, but the trust between them was almost tangible and made it alright. She could definitely feel Kai's eyes on her as well, and decided it was finally time to roll onto her side and let her eyes wander.

Whether or not Kai was 'big' in comparison with other guys, she couldn't say, because she had no point of comparison. It certainly looked big, and Jinora knew that was about to go in her, which was a weird thought to have, and probably an even weirder way to put it.

-"I knew I should have been more diligent about the manscaping," Kai remarked, mostly to break the silence.

Jinora took a closer look, and did indeed see some stubble down there. "Don't worry about it. It's just good timing that I shaved this morning," she chuckled.

Kai laughed too, and saw how Jinora was being very hesitant as she reached out a couple of times, but constantly pulled her hand back before she got very far. "Jin," he said, stopping her entirely. "It's okay. You said it yourself, you can touch."

"Well, I just... It's very private, wouldn't you say?"

He chuckled. "Well, that's the point of what we're doing here. If you want the introduction, okay; that's my penis, I've had it my entire life, it doesn't have a name, but you can call it Kai Jr. if you want."

This made Jinora laugh, and reminded her of why she was doing this with Kai: his ability to make her feel comfortable anywhere, in any situation. It did work, however, finally giving her the confidence to touch his member. It was warm to the touch (big shock), and a lot harder than she was expecting. "Oh, this feels weird," she muttered.

-"You're telling me," Kai chuckled, only with a slightly breathless pitch to his voice. He was clearly excited about this, Jinora was literally holding the proof in her hand.

"Do we have the thing here?" she asked after letting go.

-"'Thing' as in 'condom'?"

Jinora nodded, and somehow, she was only turning redder, while also being fairly confident that was impossible. The heat burning in her cheeks disagreed, though.

-"Right here," he said as he grabbed the wrapper off her nightstand. "Should I just do it myself?" In all honesty, she had no answer for that question, and her indecision lead Kai to just pick one. "Tell you what, I'll do it now, you do it next time," he chuckled.

"Okay," she quickly nodded.

Kai opened the wrapper up, and as he was putting it on, Jinora felt glad that she was on the pill. _That_ was all that would make it safe sex otherwise? While her rational mind knew that it was, the condom just looked so... flimsy. Like it would break at the first sign of trouble.

When he was done, Kai pulled Jinora on top of him, and immediately pulled her down to kiss her again. It was different, mostly because she could now feel his erection poke her directly in the hips, but that was okay, nothing really wrong with it. It kind of added to Jinora's excitement, even though it didn't do anything to let her blush subside.

Also, and this was more a thing she'd had in mind, namely that she wanted to be on the bottom now. It would probably be easier with Kai on top, so Jinora decided to make that happen. Without ever breaking their kiss, she rolled them over, forgetting for a moment that her bed was too narrow, and promptly slipped out of Kai's grasp and fell off the side.

Kai broke out in spontaneous laughter, and for the first time tonight, Jinora felt properly embarrassed. It was her own dumb fault, and she should have seen it coming a mile away. "That's not funny!" she indignantly yelled, trying to get back on the bed with at least a little bit of her dignity intact.

-"Yes, it is," Kai chuckled, and held out his hand to pull her back on the bed. "You okay though?"

There was a slight sting in her elbow, as that had taken the brunt of the impact, but that wasn't nearly enough for Jinora to stop this. "I am. Though we should really stop this contest we've got going over who can hurt themselves the most during sex."

He laughed at this, and soon they wound up in the position Jinora actually wanted them to be: Kai on top of her, with her legs slightly spread. The laugh faded from those massive green eyes and changed to a more serious expression. "This is it, huh?"

Jinora nodded, and with that, Kai lined his cock up with her opening, and gently starting pushing in, but he didn't get very far. "Ow - OW!" she cried out.

Kai immediately stopped what he was doing, looking up with a hint of worry in his eyes. "What's wrong?" he hurried to ask.

At this, Jinora started blushing even harder than she already was. "Well... It's just that... I'm not wet enough and you're quite big."

Kai threw his head back as he laughed. "And I thought I was supposed to be the smooth one in this relationship."

Jinora chuckled as well. "Maybe. Doesn't solve the immediate problem though."

Now it was his turn to blush. "How... would we go about that?"

"You could... use your hands..." Jinora cautiously suggested, after which she placed her hand on Kai's, and gently guided him down. He notably swallowed, but didn't protest at all. She kept pushing him, right up to the point where his fingers touched her clit. "Yes..." she breathed, because even a single touch was enough to get her riled up now.

It was obvious Kai didn't really know what to do, but after a few moments of hesitation, he started moving his finger in circles, finally getting the desired effect.

Jinora couldn't hold back a low moan, but due to proximity, Kai heard it no problem and it made him smile. "Guess that works," he smirked.

"Yes," she breathed. "Keep doing that..." If he kept that up, she'd be wet enough for him in no time at all. Heck, there might be more in it for her than that. Definitely something she wanted out of this, because she could be a little selfish.

Not that that was necessary, because Kai already seemed like he had made up his mind about getting Jinora there anyway. His fingers dipped a little lower, slipping through her folds, which were getting properly wet now. She could feel him circle her opening, and almost couldn't wait for him to go further. "Please... Push it in..." she breathed, almost begged, come to think of it.

-"You really sure about this?"

"Kai, you don't have to treat me like I'm made of glass. I want this as much as you do," Jinora smiled.

She didn't need to tell him that twice, and he quite easily slipped a finger in. This was the first time she had any other than her own fingers in there, and truth be told, she couldn't wait for more. "I think that'll do," she said.

He took a deep breath and pulled his fingers back, which caused Jinora to whine at the loss, but that feeling was soon replaced with one of giddy excitement on one hand and unabashed fear on the other. Kai lined his cock up again with her opening, this time rubbing the head through her lower lips a few times to lube it up, supposedly, before looking her deep in the eyes.

With a single nod, Jinora gave him the official green light. This really would be it.

And for a starter, it went a lot better this time, because being sufficiently wet really did turn out to be step one. Not that it was all sunshine and rainbows, because there was a bit of pain involved. It did feel a bit like she was getting stretched more than she was used to, but at the same time, it was feeling kind of good.

Definitely a good thing Kai was taking it slow though, because Jinora knew that it was going to take some getting used to.

-"Fuck... You're so tight, babe," Kai panted, his breath streaking over her chin.

"Just... Just take it easy..."

-"Always," he said, and pressed a quick kiss on her lips. Jinora soon wrapped an arm around his neck, keeping him close to her.

That didn't stop her from looking down, though, and suddenly, she felt a little scared. There was definitely some blood on the condom. "Kai, stop," she said, and he immediately did.

-"Whoa," he said upon seeing it too. "That's not good."

Jinora shook her head. "Or it's just the final proof that I really was a virgin."

Kai chuckled. "Babe, I never doubted you." He paused for a moment. "Want me to go on?"

"Yes," she nodded. "But easy does it, okay?"

-"You got it." Kai pressed a quick kiss on her lips, before finally lining up again and pushing his member into her. This time around, it still stung a little for Jinora, but much less so than the first time. In fact, it was nothing if not pleasurable, largely because Kai was taking it slow.

He had the good sense to push in a little bit more on every thrust, which made Jinora let out a soft and breathy moan. It felt really good, until it... didn't. The pleasurable sensation was replaced with more pain, and her face started contorting. "Stop... Stop..." she breathed, and Kai immediately did. "Take it slow... no deeper than that..."

With a nod, he continued, clearly doing his very best to stick to Jinora's limits. And when he did... _damn_ , did it feel good. Part of her had the urge to stick a hand down there and help herself along, but that probably wouldn't do Kai's ego much good, so she decided against it. (For now.)

Jinora noticed that as he was going in, it went progressively easier, mostly because she got wetter and wetter as he went on, which was a good thing. The initial flash of pain had subsided, and was slowly being replaced by a building wave of pleasure, waiting to crash down on her at the moment of her release.

But Kai's breathing was becoming erratic, to the point that he couldn't say anything meaningful anymore, but at the same time, neither could she. It didn't matter, because there was nothing _to_ say. Right now, Jinora was staring into Kai's impossibly green eyes, and they were communicating everything she needed to know. What's more, after a while, his thrust were slowing down, and with a soft groan, he fell down completely on top of Jinora, his arms no longer capable of holding him up.

Now, if she was completely honest with herself, that was disappointing, even if it wasn't unexpected. Jinora felt him pull out of her, and then he pushed himself back up, making sure they were face to face again. "Babe... I'm..."

It was clear that he was apologizing, but Jinora wouldn't have any of that. She was already berating herself for her earlier disappointment. It was his first time as well, after all. He'd known just as much about the hows and whats of this as she did. Instead, she just cut him off by pulling herself up by his neck and pressing a long, slow kiss on his lips. "It's okay."

-"No, it's not," he said while wrenching himself free. "I got to... finish, and you didn't. It's not fair to you."

"Well, if you feel so guilty... There's more than one way to achieve that." Kai looked up with a questioning expression, making Jinora smile. "You were doing very well with your hands earlier on. I wouldn't be opposed to that."

He nodded, and once again reached down, increasing her breathing again as the anticipation built up. She wasn't even being facetious, he really had been doing great. If that was Kai's best way of making her reach her climax, there'd be nothing in her opposed to that.

And when his fingers slipped through Jinora's lower folds again, that notion was totally reaffirmed. She was still soaking wet, and feeling his fingers brush over her clit was precisely what she wanted. Kai got that part too, probably from the gasp of air Jinora took when he hit it, and smiled. He didn't need to say anything, and neither did she, for that matter, because he immediately started rubbing slow circles over it.

As he continued this motion, Jinora's breathing became increasingly shallow, already having been brought vaguely in the right direction by what they were doing before, but now they were actually getting somewhere. "Right there... Right there..." she breathed, assuring Kai that he was doing very well right now.

Plus, there was the added benefit of their bodies being pressed together, having become slick from the sweat, the sight of Kai, who was in great shape by all measures, being slightly out of breath, and just the sheer look of _want_ in his eyes that was driving Jinora close to the edge.

And yet... She had this awful feeling that it _just_ wouldn't be enough to push her over that edge. For that, she'd need an extra hand, and Kai's ego notwithstanding, that would probably have to be her own. "Oh... Kai..." she breathed while slipping her own hand down her body.

But when it got close, Kai put his own free hand on Jinora's, stopping it where it was, to an undisguised moan of contempt from her. "Babe, if you need some extra help, all you needed to do was say so," he smirked, and promptly slipped down her body a little bit. The hand he was previously using to stimulate her clit went a little further down, and Kai push two fingers into Jinora, making her gasp at the sensation.

And he wasn't done yet. He brought his other hand down as well, and used his thumb to rub a few slow circles around her clit, and just to put a cherry on the cake, Kai then wrapped his lips around one of her Jinora's nipples and gently sucked on them.

It instantly brought her a lot closer to her peak, and this was made even clearer when he stopped his thumb and instead started pumping his two fingers in and out of her, making Jinora release another soft moan. She was doing her best to keep it down, why, she didn't really know, but it just felt like the right thing to do.

She was so close to her climax, and if Kai just kept it up a little bit longer, he'd get her there. Jinora arched her back off the bed, her toes curling in on themselves, her hands grasping at the sheets. She had practically lost control over her own body, but the best part was that she didn't care. There was something deeper, more primal, that had taken over, but Kai was the driving force behind that.

And when he finally pushed her over the edge, it was _heavenly_. Never before had Jinora ever felt anything like this. The wave of pleasure that had been building up in her finally crested, and came crashing down on her. She let out a silent scream of pleasure, and she felt Kai pull back, but she was a little preoccupied to pay much attention to him right now, outside of feeling his hands on her body.

With labored breaths, Jinora fell back on the bed, feeling completely spent. Fulfilled, but spent. She could probably sleep for a week, or that's how it felt at least.

At the same time, she could hear Kai chuckle off to her right. "Well that worked," he smirked at her.

"I'll say," she breathed, trying to smirk back at him, but kind of failing to do so. He did look very comfortable, though, so Jinora rolled halfway over, resting her head on his chest. In this position, she could clearly feel his heart beating faster than normal, and it felt like his breathing was a bit deeper too. She felt him gently tap all of her freckles and birthmarks, most of which were on her shoulders and within easy reach of his hand.

Similarly, once her breathing evened out a little, Jinora started tracing his tattoos one by one, starting with the shaded circle with the square hole on his chest, followed by the three spirals on his shoulder and the anchor on his hip, but gave up when she realized she couldn't really reach the one behind his ear. Instead, she pulled herself up a little and pressed a lazy kiss on his lips, before resting her head on his chest again.

Truth be told, Jinora wanted nothing more than to stay like this all night, falling asleep together and maybe wake up later for pillow talk. She knew that wasn't going to happen, but was in no rush to address that.

Unfortunately, Kai thought differently. "Babe, we should get dressed again. I don't want to be here where your parents come home."

"Ugh, I'm going to establish a new rule now: no mentioning my parents when we're both naked."

He chuckled. "Good point, but I don't want to find out what happens otherwise."

Jinora groaned and rolled off of him. "Fine. Here I thought we could have some alone time."

Kai laughed again as he pointed at the clock. "We did, it's nine thirty, so we used it all up in the best way possible." With a final groan, he sat up and threw his legs over the side of the bed, trying to collect all of his clothes.

She watched him for a bit as he threw the used condom in the trash and got dressed, and suddenly felt a bit exposed. "Could you hand me that robe, please?" Jinora asked with a small voice. Without any questions, Kai threw it to her, upon which she quickly slipped it on. "Thanks."

He held out both hands to pull Jinora back on her feet, which did make her feel slightly unsteady. "Hmm, you should really wash your hands before going anywhere. They're kind of sticky."

Kai chuckled. "They are, but it's not surprising given what they were doing ten minutes ago, and you weren't complaining then."

"True."

He quickly washed his hands in her sink, and Jinora just followed his example, after which he started making his way down the stairs. She internally debated putting on some more clothes first, but also realized that Kai had been right and that he should probably move quickly, lest they be sat down for another lecture from her father.

Weirdly enough though, as he slipped into his jacket again, she didn't really know what to say. It would have been a strange sight, Kai's hair messier than usual and Jinora's completely disheveled, but she didn't care. She just pulled him in for a tight hug, content to stay like that for just a little while longer.

Kai must have felt the same, since he didn't protest or made any move to pull away, instead he just pressed a kiss into the side of her hair and held her tight. "We definitely have to do that again," he smirked.

Jinora chuckled. "Agreed, even though the bump on your head and bruise on my elbow probably have a thing or two to say about that."

-"Trivial little sacrifices, and more than worth it in the end." Kai pulled back, and pressed a slow, long kiss on her lips. "I really have to go now."

"I know." Not that she made any attempt to let him go, this was too good. "You do realize you owe me cuddles next time, right?"

-"I do."

"And they better be naked cuddles, because those were much better than these."

Kai chuckled. "That's not something I'd say no to." After this, he started tugging on Jinora's arms a little bit, she relented with a sigh. "Text me when you get home?" Jinora asked him softly.

-"Absolutely." He walked through the front door, changed his mind, and kissed her one last time. "See you later, babe."

Trying her best not to look like a lovesick puppy (but largely failing at that), Jinora simply waved him off as he walked around the corner to the small parking lot where he usually left his bike so that he wouldn't have to ride it up to their driveway and earn her father's scorn.

After he disappeared from view, Jinora knew she had to do a few things, first and foremost was to take a long shower. The light burning sensation in her muscles was pleasant, the fact that she was sticky in some uncomfortable places... wasn't. Shower first, she'd see to the rest later.

She made doubly sure to close the door of her room properly, hopefully preventing her parents from barging in there and seeing the messy bed and various other pieces of evidence of what she'd done.

Overly prudent, maybe, but a good call, as Jinora heard the front door open when she was still in the shower. "Jinora, we're home!" Pema called out.

"Okay, I'm in the shower!" she called back, knowing that would ensure they'd leave her alone as she finished cleaning up. Rohan was such a heavy sleeper, he was probably in the land of dreams by now and the only way to get him out again was by putting him in bed and wait for morning to come.

At the same time, her parents were probably on their way to corralling Ikki and Meelo towards the bathroom, so Jinora would have to get out soon anyways.

She slipped back into her bathrobe (this time around with underwear on) and when she got out, made a beeline back to her room to at least make her bed a little more presentable. Changing it would have to wait until she could buy herself a little more time.

A knock on her door pulled Jinora from her thoughts. "Just a sec," she said as she finished pulling on her sleeping shirt. "Okay, come in."

It turned out to be her mother. "I trust you had a good evening?"

"Oh yeah, just fine," Jinora said, barely able to suppress a chuckle. She hoped the grin wouldn't be too noticeable.

Pema nodded. "I just wanted to talk to you about your cousin. You know Kian doesn't really hate you, right?"

Jinora scoffed. "Yeah right. He tried to set fire to my hair last year. Must have mistaken affection with arson."

It made her mother laugh, but not for too long. "He's still family, and it was mostly my sister who was disappointed you weren't there."

"Can't please everyone in this world."

-"No, but your family is a good place to start," Pema sighed, after which a brief silence fell. "Well, you think about it. I do want to ask you why you showered already, though."

Jinora felt herself go a little red. "Oh, you know, I was a bit sweaty from the day. Plus, now I don't have to wait for Ikki and Meelo tomorrow."

-"Right," her mother nodded as she headed for the door. "Are you going to bed too?"

(Oh God yes. Who knew sex was so exhausting?) "Yes, I'm a little tired."

-"Good," Pema nodded as she started walking out. "Oh, but one more thing."

"What is it?"

-"You should probably open a window. It smells a little post-coital in here."

Jinora's mouth fell open and she went bright red, but her mother didn't give her a chance to respond, as she simply shot her daughter a wink and pulled the door shut behind her. That was one thing she definitely was _not_ expecting.

* * *

 _Okay, I feel like a bit of explanation here, and since you've already stuck with it for so long, a few more words won't matter. I originally started Who We Are as a counter to The Callgirl with its enormously long chapters, specifically with the intent of doing chapters that were a lot shorter and easier to write. I wanted something that could be done without chronic overthinking, overwriting, and overediting slowing the whole process down to a crawl. At the same time, I knew from the start that I wanted to do a sex scene and to do that justice, I would have to end up contending with those three elements again. Hence why the scene you just read is over 7000 words long, pretty much exactly the average length of a chapter of The Callgirl. It helps that I ended that story and have more to vent about here, but there is something bigger going on, namely that I really wanted to get Kai and Jinora's first time_ right _. I've been doing this for a while, and all the nice people who are leaving nice reviews (which includes a lot of you, thank you very much) have filled me with a certain confidence about writing scenes like this. But what I often feel like when reading other smut scenes is that it comes off as if it's a bit too easy, and while you're free to disagree with this, I do believe first times are a bit special, and I wanted it to be for two characters I really like. I didn't want this scene to be perfect, like it's the most amazing sex they'll ever have, but I wanted the moment to be_ theirs _. And the only way for me to achieve that was go on at length about it, which is also why this chapter took so long. (According to the log, I started the document on July 11th, 2016.) Anyway, that's a bit of background on this chapter, thank you all for reading it, and I'll see you at the next one._


	28. Concert

_I'm back._

* * *

-"You sure about this, babe?" Kai asked, though the phone did cut down the sincerity she knew he was trying to convey.

"Um, yes, I want to fix things with my best friend. Just the concert, and I'll see you later at the party. Save a shot for me," Jinora chuckled.

He laughed too. "Shouldn't be too hard, but okay. Then I guess I'll see you later tonight, babe."

"I guess so. Bye." Kai hung up, and Jinora sighed. Yesterday had been so good, and yet... she just wanted there to be more of it. Not sex per se, at least not right away, but she did want to be close to him, more so than normal.

But there was nothing she could do about it now. The Wolfbats concert she'd be going to with Fen was tonight, but after that, Korra had texted her that there was going to be a 'lit-ass party' at the skate park and that she'd be wasting the opportunity of a lifetime not to go. Even though Jinora wasn't so sure if that was really her thing, both Kai and Korra had convinced her to at least give it a try and show her face. If she didn't like it, she could always leave.

The concert wouldn't end too late, and since the party was probably going to last a while, there shouldn't be any problems with the timing of fitting both into one evening, and Fen would probably be too excited after the concert to care much. It wasn't a coincidence that Jinora had asked Bolin for these tickets, Fen was crazy for that band, and it was still within budget. She lucked out here.

Jinora quickly changed into clothes that were sort of the middle ground between not standing out at the party later, and not too far off from what she would normally wear so that Fen wouldn't ask difficult questions, and with that, she was ready. "Okay Mom, I'm going!"

Pema stood up to wave her daughter off. "Alright, what time are you going to be home?"

"Concert ends at ten, but I figured, if things aren't too tense with Fen, we might go into town for a bit. Seize the opportunity." Even from here, Jinora could see Ikki glaring daggers at her. No way would she be allowed that kind of freedom.

-"Hmm. Well, you let me know what you're going to do. Have fun, sweetheart."

Jinora smiled. "I will. Thanks, Mom."

* * *

She was feeling a little self-conscious, mostly because she was wearing her orange hoodie, which she had never actually shown to Fen before.

Sure, it was summer, but it wasn't actually all _that_ warm, and more to the point, Jinora was only wearing a T-shirt underneath it. For now though, she was waiting outside the place where the concert would be for Fen to arrive, which she soon enough did. "Come by bus this time?"

Her best friend nodded. "Yeah, my mom didn't feel like picking me up after it's done and dad isn't home tonight, so it was either bus or walking."

"Fair enough. Let's go in, try and get some good spots."

They did, and on the way there, Fen finally noticed something. "By the way, what are you wearing? You look like you're going out to score some weed."

Jinora chuckled. "Well, actually..." She wasn't, but yeah, her best friend was on to something there. It wasn't unthinkable there would be copious amounts of it later.

-"You're not..." Fen said, her eyes growing wide.

"No, I'm not," she laughed. "But it's comfortable and just warm enough for tonight, so I figured, why not?"

-"Because it's just... so not you."

Jinora laughed that away. "You'd be surprised. Now let's go." She tied her hoodie around her waist by the sleeves, and they soon managed to get themselves some decent places, fortunately not behind some gigantic guy, so they could still see the stage. Jinora had also spotted Bolin behind one of the bars, and was already glad that at least she wasn't going to be the only one kind of missing out on some of the party. "Tell you what: you save these spots, and I'll go and get us something to drink. Still sticking with orange soda?"

-"You know me," Fen smiled.

"That I do." Jinora walked off with a smile of her own, knowing that this might actually work out the way she was hoping.

-"Jin," Bolin greeted her. "What can I get you?"

"Orange soda and a coke."

-"Want me to make them extra strong?" he asked her with a wink, which made Jinora raise an eyebrow. Of course he'd do that.

At the same time, she knew Fen was no saint either and would probably appreciate it. "Yeah, why not? You going to the party after this?" she asked as he was preparing the drinks.

-"Definitely. Opal and Korra did all of the prep, even Asami is coming. Heard from Kai?"

Jinora scoffed. "Cheap booze and easy weed? I couldn't keep him away from there if I put a gun to his head."

It made Bolin laugh and slightly overdo it on the vodka in Fen's drink. "Wouldn't count on that last one. Brings a lot of heat, and with underage drinking already going on, it's best to keep it under the radar. So you better drink up while you're here," he finished, sliding the drinks over the bar while Jinora handed him the money.

"Thanks, I'll keep that in mind." She took the drinks back to Fen, and soon after, the concert started. Even though Jinora wasn't a huge fan of the Wolfbats, she still had to admit that she was having a really good time here. The slight buzz from the spiked drink was nice, and Fen immediately picked up on it with a knowing smile. All in all, it was a huge success, and it felt great to have things with her best friend be on the mend again.

-"We definitely owe whoever hook you up with those tickets a 'thank you'. This was amazing. I bet it was that cute bartender who gave us the splash of vodka."

Jinora internally groaned, because she of course hit the nail on the head. "He was. And what do you mean, 'cute'?"

Fen was surprised at this reaction. "You don't think he is? Boy, Kai set your standards pretty high, didn't he?"

"He... I... Bolin..." Jinora sputtered, unable to find a good response. "Fine, let's just see if we can find him."

It turned out that he was just behind the bar, doing some of the last clean-up.

"Bo," she quickly greeted him.

-"Jin. You enjoyed the concert?"

"We sure did. Listen, Fen and I just wanted to thank you for the..." She made a gesture of pouring, which Bolin got.

He smiled, but also put a finger to his lips, probably because it wasn't allowed. "So are you going to the party right away or sticking around here for a bit?"

Fen was surprised by this. "Party? What party?"

Jinora internally swore, but also knew that this was kind of to be expected. "Well, Bolin, Kai, and a few others have invited me to a party, and I'm still kind of on the fence about going."

-"And what if I'd go to?" Fen asked with a knowing smile. "I know you're not huge on these things, but it could be fun. I won't actively try getting you any more drunk than you already are, okay?"

Jinora chuckled. "Okay then, let's go."

* * *

 _I know it's been a while, and I apologize, but if you've read my_ _Asami Alone_ _one-shot, you know this, there has been a lot of stuff going on in my personal that kind of put me off writing for a bit. That's also why this chapter is a little short and not my favorite, I'm trying to get back into the groove as best I can. (I feel slightly less bad about that because the previous chapter was enormous.) Anyway guys, I hope I'll see you at the next one. Later!_


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